Chandrasekhar

Strong opinions held weekly. Happen to tinker a bit @ Fidelity. No claims to know much. Views only mine and not representative of Employer.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@abhymurarka Wouldn’t feel strongly sure about this. expensive ECB costs on fully hedged, bonds more expensive vs loans and working capital demand from inflation mainly. That said, lending spreads are improving - see 3yr corp bond vs 3 year govt bond differentials improving.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@SagarH62 James Pattinson

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@OldSchoolFinanc M&S stalled at 1500cr. They’ve been here since 2004 iirc.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

TIL Ikea India’s and Zara India’s sales in India have stalled at 16-1700cr and 2500cr respectively for 3 years running now

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

TIL Maruti sells out of 2500 locations in India while Dominos which is the best penetrated QSR is still only in 500 locations

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@_devesh_ But to stall at such low levels of absolute sales is still surprising to me. Could be competition etc yes, unaware of exact micro. Would have thought Zara would run well till 6-7000cr of sales easily

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@OldSchoolFinanc Could be. Unaware of the exact micro around both, but surprised that they have stalled at such sub scale revenues already. 2500cr for Zara even at India 1 seems too low.

[Karthik Krishnaswamy @the_kk]

The great Dale Steyn on the great Sachin Tendulkar, as told to me (I barely had to work to get all this insight out of him). https://t.co/whJOKU5QaV

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@SagarH62 Peter Taylor

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@sajithpai @NicolaiTang1 They used to own Coal India for many years. Fit their bill of monopoly and high profitability. Wrote multiple letters to the management on capital allocation and speeding up growth. Nothing happened. Sold out eventually.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@SagarH62 Peter Willey?

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@SagarH62 Shayne O Connor

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@CricketopiaCom Atapattu, Romesh, Mahanama, Asanka, Aravinda, Arjuna, Upul, Chaminda, Hashan, Pushpakumara, Sanath.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@SagarH62 Merv Hughes

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

I found this as one the most insightful interviews around the Indian macro. Worth your time.

[Prashant Nair @_prashantnair]

Reports say RBI is considering a $ bond issuance. This is different vs 2013 NRI event which was deposits, not debt issuance !

But this also buys time rather than fixing underlying issues (apart from questions around whether this would distort pricing across Indian dollar bonds etc)

What are the structural fixes ? I spoke with @ananthng . He suggests 3 things -

1. Market-determined rates
2. Tax reform
3. Credible currency stability

Do watch. #Nifty #BankNifty #RBI #Rupee #India

https://t.co/ie0vvbOng7

[Shashank Kishore @captainshanky]

Desert Storm in Sharjah is 28 years old. Yup, let that sink in.

[Gurdeep Singh Sappal @gurdeepsappal]

White towels are a legacy of British era, when there were few roads, fewer cars and no ACs. Officer toured on horses and towels were an integral part of hygiene routine.

British left, horses were sent away, but towels stayed!

It’s not just towels, the size of tables and colour of ink are also defined by hierarchy.

When I was working at Joint Secretary level with the Vice President of India, I had to fight a stiff battle of sorts to order a smaller table that would fit better in my office. The system would not approve of a smaller table!

Regarding the colour of ink to be used for noting and signature, Sh. Arun Shourie has written a hilarious, if not ridiculous, memoir as minister.

In 1999, two officers in the Ministry of Steel made notings on files using red and green ink.

This raised a furore as they were junior officers. The seniors were scandalised and an enquiry was initiated.

India’s bureaucracy spent 13 months debating which colour ink officers could use on files.

The enquiry was routed through several ministries and departments:

Ministry of Steel wrote to Dept of Administrative Reforms

It referred to Directorate of Printing (ink experts)

Printing referred to Dept of Personnel & Training (DoPT)

DoPT threw the ball back: “it’s your Manual, you decide”

National Archives was consulted for longevity of ink colours

Ministry of Defence consulted for Army ink hierarchy

Conclusion after 13 months: juniors wrote in blue-black or blue ink, because that has the longest life of impression. In British era, the files had to travel to Britain, so juniors would write in ink that would stay for the longest.

The top brass would sign in green and red.

Ruling:

Two new paras were added to the manual of office procedure:

Para 32(9) says that only officers of Joint Secretary level and above may use red or green ink, and that too only in rare cases. Para 68(5), on the other hand, does not limit the use of these colours to any particular rank (as modern ball pen ink have no issues of shelf life for any colour!)

The white towel on the officer’s chair. The red telephone on the desk. The peon standing at the door. The green ink reserved for the senior sahib.
These are not accidents of history. They are architecture, the physical grammar of a bureaucratic culture that worships hierarchy.

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@Prashanth_Krish 😬 didn’t even realise that . So much for not tweeting much

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

Is the TL;DR of F1 testing that Ferrari finally has a serious shot this year at the Championship?

[Chandrasekhar @chondhe]

@Prashanth_Krish No real intelligence to add here. Limited point being we r hurting ourselves in the foot by doing these things. People will eventually get back when perceived return scope ends up better than elsewhere. ₹ dep + tax now needs to provide > g than elsewhere + at sensible multiples