Samco Mutual Fund Introduces “Stress Tested Investing” And Proposes To Launch Truly Active Funds With High Active Share

 

·         For the first time in India, Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd (SAMCO AMC) introduces Stress Tested Investing

·         To launch funds and schemes only comprising of companies passing SAMCO’s proprietary HexaShield stress test framework

·         To be the first AMC in India to transparently disclose “Active Share” daily and endeavors to launch truly active funds with high active share

Samco Mutual Fund Introduces “Stress Tested Investing”. Stress Tested investing is a strategy to put to work money with businesses that can endure and survive in a variety of stressful situations and generate long term risk adjusted returns. Each business is put through a series of six rigorous tests defined by SAMCO’s proprietary HexaShield framework and only businesses that pass the HexaShield test shall form a part of the investable universe.

The premise of Stress Tested Investing lies in 2 core beliefs. Firstly, lives of businesses have gotten shorter over the years due to constant disruptions and businesses need to be truly resilient to survive in the marketplace and create shareholder value. Second, the best businesses are the ones that over an extended period can employ large amounts of incremental capital at very high rates of return. Simply put, can they be true compounding machines generating high RoCE and reinvesting at an incrementally high RoIC.

SAMCO’s HexaShield framework is designed to stress test whether a business can survive across a variety of macro and micro economic pressures and truly be compounding machine.

The six facets of HexaShield framework and some illustrative (not exhaustive) stress tests that each business is put through:

·         Reinvestment & Growth Stress Tests

o   Does the business have opportunity to grow and reinvest capital at incrementally high ROIC?

·         Corporate Governance and Leadership Stress Tests

o   Is the board truly independent? Is there a key man risk? Is there governance risk due to multiple businesses or pledges?

·         Cash Flow Stress Tests

o   The Cash Suffocation test

·         Balance Sheet & Debt Stress Tests

o   Can the business survive insolvency stress tests? Or survive mismatches in asset liability schedules?

·         Competitive Strength & Pricing Power Stress Tests

o   Can the business survive if it is put through extreme competitive intensity?

·         Regulatory Stress Tests

o   Are regulatory pressures going to act as entry barriers or act as impediment to growth?

Most listed companies end up failing the stress test. In fact, only 15 out of NIFTY 50 index constituents pass SAMCO’s stress test framework. Only a limited number of companies that pass the stress test certified via the HexaShield framework will find place in the SAMCO Mutual Fund’s scheme portfolio. These stress tested business have demonstrated capabilities to generate much superior risk adjusted returns.

For the time in India, Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd (SAMCO AMC) to disclose daily Active Share of its schemes.

One of the primary reasons that active funds underperform their index is that the average equity fund manager owns far too many stocks and in effect tracks the index. So, the result is that investors are getting is in fact an index fund less the manager’s fees. This structure makes underperformance against the index inevitable. This phenomenon is referred to as Closet Indexing or Index Hugging.

Active Share measures the fraction of a portfolio (based on position weights) that differs from the benchmark index. The Active Share measure was developed by Martijn Cremers and Antti Petajisto, both Yale professors.

A scheme that has an active share less than 60% is in effect an Index hugger. Most active funds in the world have ended up being closet indexers.

For the first time in India, SAMCO Mutual Fund will transparently disclose daily Active Share to Indian Investors, so they know that when they are paying an active fee, it’s certainly for buying something widely different from the Index.

SAMCOs Stress Test framework results in very few companies truly passing the stress test with 70% of the index components failing it. So, we will embrace divergence from the Index and disclose Active Share. In fact, SAMCO’s endeavor will be to launch only truly active funds with high active share.

Jimeet Modi, Founder and Director of Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd said “SAMCO Mutual Fund’ promise to investors is to be a truly Active Stress Tested Fund. The world of asset management is going through various disruptions and SAMCO aims to be at the forefront of leading disruptions on the Active segment. We will build funds with high active share so that cost conscious investors get a truly active fund and not a closet index fund when they pay for an active TER and our stress tested investing framework gives the new age investor an authentic and not merely a generic reason to invest with us. Our endeavor would be to generate the highest risk adjusted returns for investors in the long term.”

Umeshkumar Mehta, CEO of Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd said “We are excited to enter the asset management business with a purpose to cater to the subtle needs of an investor - higher returns and lower risk with lower volatility. SAMCO AMC promises to be a truly stress tested AMC and will only launch schemes of portfolios that pass the stress tested framework. As a result, SAMCO AMC shall refrain from launching schemes in every SEBI category and will refrain from launching schemes like Infra Funds, PSU funds, Power and Energy funds, Dividend Yield funds, etc because these categories typically to do not make the cut as far as passing the stress tested framework is concerned. We will truly be an asset manager and not asset gatherer.”

Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd  https://www.samcomf.com/ is the asset manager to the Samco Mutual Fund having SEBI registration No MF-077/21/03    having its registered office at 1003-A, 10th Floor, Naman Midtown, Senapati Bapat Marg, Prabhadevi(W), Mumbai 4000013. The Board of Directors and Core team are annexed herewith in the Corporate Profile.

Details about the Sponsor, SAMCO Securities Limited, https://www.samco.in/ is a wealth-tech start-up headquartered in Mumbai, which is one of India's fastest growing companies in the Discount Broking Industry with over 250000 customers. 

The company aims to solve problems and at an extremely affordable cost for its customers who actively trade or invest in the Indian capital markets with the use of algorithms, data science and artificial intelligence.

Eduvanz Partners With Salesforce To Simplify Lending To Students

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced that Eduvanz, a digital finance company that provides education loans, will be deploying Salesforce to provide students easy access to financing options throughout their learning journey. 

Eduvanz was founded in 2016 with the mission to empower students to make educated and informed decisions by providing financial resources. Eduvanz is the preferred ‘Lender for Learners’, offering education loans with flexible financing solutions starting from zero interest for students, skill seekers, and learners of all ages. Eduvanz leverages proprietary algorithms and predictive analytics to provide loans based on the future employability of learners. 

With the deployment of Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Heroku and Anypoint Platform, Eduvanz is looking to expand their services by introducing a Loan Origination Solution that offers the flexibility to support a range of new products with varying levels of complexity in a seamless manner. The new journeys would enable learners to not only fund their fees for education but also ancillary spends such as digital devices, hostel spends, transportation, to facilitate a seamless learning experience. Whishworks, a Strategic MuleSoft Partner, will be implementing MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform as the integration layer to seamlessly connect Eduvanz’ different data sources with Salesforce. 

Comments on the news:

Varun Chopra, CEO, Eduvanz, said: “At Eduvanz, we believe that finance should not become a hindrance in a learner’s path to success. Despite the abundance of opportunities, what often restricts students, learners, and parents from higher education is the lack of easy, fast, and affordable financial assistance. Technology is extremely crucial to our business and we want to create a platform that meets all the financing needs of a learner. By  partnering with Salesforce, we aim to further simplify the process of financial assistance throughout a learner’s journey while also increasing our footprint in the education sector.” 

Arun Kumar Parameswaran, SVP & Managing Director, Sales & Distribution, Salesforce India, said: “Seismic digital-first shifts from traditional business models and workplaces has put the focus back on skills, with individuals across demographics looking to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. The democratisation of skills is an imperative, it needs to reach every country, industry and community equally. We are delighted to be the technology partner for Eduvanz on this journey of democratising education.”  

About Eduvanz: 

Eduvanz is an NBFC Fintech which is a “Lender for Learners” that enables learners to ‘Study Now and Pay Later' in small easy-on-the-pocket installments. The core objective of the company is to make education accessible to all learners across K-12, Test-Prep, Upskilling & UG/PG segments.Since its inception in 2016, the company has disbursed more than $75Mn worth of loans benefiting over 60,000 learners across various education loan categories such as upskilling, school fee financing among others. Eduvanz has partnered with top banks and NBFC to get access to a large capital base at lower cost of capital compared to other Fintechs. Eduvanz has recently raised its Series B Round from Juvo, Sequoia Capital and Unitus Ventures. Eduvanz has raised over $ 10mn in debt from various debt partners like Northern Arc and Vivriti among others. For more information visit: www.eduvanz.com

About Salesforce 

Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies of every size and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their customers. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Solve.Care Launches The World’s First Cross-Border Blockchain Telemedicine Network

* Blockchain technology provides for unparalleled patient and doctor data safety

* Empowers doctors and patients with unprecedented global access, convenience, and transparency

* HealthLink Technologies will be the Indian distributor for GTHE

Solve.Care, a global healthcare blockchain platform company, today announced the launch of its Global Telehealth Exchange (GTHE) network for India. GTHE is an open borderless, instant patient-doctor teleconsultation healthcare network that operates on the Solve.Care Platform. The official distributor for GTHE in India is HealthLink Technologies, a healthtech company headquartered in Pune.

GTHE acts as a global directory of physicians worldwide for patients, and once doctors complete a strict verification process, they can set and publish their own rates, credentials, availability, and start accepting appointments from patients anywhere in the world (where legislation permits). Thanks to GTHE’s decentralized technical architecture, all sensitive information is stored with unparalleled security in decentralized nodes. GTHE is revolutionary, as access to patient medical records and data are owned and controlled by the patients themselves. This allows patients to easily view and share their medical histories with medical professionals in a secure environment without having to worry that their information could be compromised. This also eliminates time and cost wastage on unnecessary and repeated medical tests every time patients see a new doctor, making healthcare delivery more efficient.

Doctors who sign up on GTHE are assigned a Global Telehealth ID with their professional profile published on the network, enabling patients worldwide to easily find and book appointments with them. It cuts out the middleman by putting the doctor directly in touch with the patient in a convenient and secure manner. On GTHE, doctors are fully sovereign and have full control over their medical practice. Doctors determine and fix their own consultation charges, duration of consultations and availability, giving them the freedom to work as much as they want, when they want. In addition, the automated features of GTHE eliminates the administrative burdens doctors are saddled with in a traditional practice. GTHE is also designed with other features that help doctors provide preventative care and continuity of care to facilitate better patient outcomes.

GTHE is rapidly expanding around the world. In addition to patients in India, patients from Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brazil, Kenya, Kuwait, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and UAE can also access Indian registered doctors through GTHE for consultations.

Patients can access GTHE through the Care.Wallet app, Solve.Care’s personal healthcare companion application downloadable from the Google Play Store and Apple Store. Patients are empowered and given greater choice as they are not limited by geography to access any doctor or specialist. As all patient data is owned and control by the patients themselves, it allows them to track their health and wellness and share their medical reports with their doctor in a safe and secure way using blockchain. Patients can form Care Circles, made up of their loved ones, so that friends and family can take an active part in their healthcare journey. Payments can be made using either the SOLVE token, Solve.Care’s native digital healthcare currency, USD, or the Indian rupee directly in the Care.Wallet app itself.

Mr. Pradeep Goel, CEO, Solve.Care said, “The application of blockchain technology for healthcare provides an opportunity revolutionize healthcare in India. Even today, if you wanted to book an appointment with a specialist, it is not uncommon for you to have to wait for over a month. However, with Global Telehealth Exchange, patients can now have a consultation with a doctor or specialist anywhere in the world, almost immediately. By removing barriers to accessing healthcare, we anticipate GTHE to generate billions in new revenue for doctors by serving the unserved population.”

Dr. B. S. Ratta, Director, HealthLink Technologies said, “The launch of the Global Tele Health Exchange in India is a milestone for telemedicine in India. As an open network with its many features, Global Telehealth Exchange helps doctors to not only become more efficient medical practitioners, but more effective ones for the benefit of their patients. In addition, with many Indian nationals working abroad, I am sure they will be comforted in having the ability to have a teleconsultation with doctors back home. I am confident doctors in India will recognise the value GTHE will bring to their medical practice.”

GTHE provides instant payments to doctors through the SOLVE token. GTHE earns its revenue through a small service charge as a percentage of the rates determined by the doctor.

The SOLVE token is a global healthcare digital currency that is native to Solve.Care. It is widely accessible on different trading platforms, as well as directly in the Care.Wallet. SOLVE simplifies payments across geographic areas and global communities, eliminating forex fluctuations and bank charges. It speeds up the payment system in a secure manner. It ensures accuracy and transparency as all transactions in SOLVE are traceable, thus helping in the mitigation of fraudulent claims. The value of the SOLVE token is guaranteed with the value fixed at the moment of transaction and doesn’t fluctuate according to the SOLVE market price.

Doctors interested in expanding and revolutionizing their practice can sign up on GTHE by visiting https://gthe.solve.care/features/main/providerregnew   

Sales-Tech SaaS Startup GTM Buddy Raises $2 Million In Seed Round; Led By Stellaris Venture Partners

GTM Buddy, a sales-tech SaaS startup, has announced that it has raised $2 million in its seed round, led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Founded by Sreedhar Peddineni, a serial entrepreneur, along with co-founders Santa Thounaojam, Sundar Vellaichamy, and Chandramani Tiwary, GTM Buddy is reimagining the sales enablement category and intends to be a category disruptor.

GTM Buddy’s just-in-time “sales enablement” platform helps sellers to accelerate their deals and improve win-rates by cutting through the noise and delivering contextually relevant & valuable information and messages to their prospective buyers. Powered by Contextual AI engine, GTM Buddy’s platform pre-processes all the sales enablement content available within the organization's content repositories, external content etc; auto indexes and surfaces the most relevant information in the context of a conversation happening with a prospective buyer.

The funds raised will be utilized for rapidly enhancing product capabilities as well as for building out the go-to-market teams - across sales, marketing and customer success functions.

Sreedhar Peddineni, Co-founder and CEO of GTM Buddy said, “A lot of us have a stereotypical notion of a “seller” as this person who is extroverted, smooth talking, relationship builder etc. The reality is that sales is increasingly becoming a knowledge driven function. Every buyer involved in the decision-making cycle expects the seller to be an expert on a wide variety of topics such as the domain, product, competition etc; all this in the background of a forever changing business environment, where the static sales enablement solutions fail to live upto what the sellers need. It is in this context that GTM Buddy leverages the latest advancements in technology, design and AI to deliver the right information to the sellers at the right time, information that is contextually relevant to the buyers; available within the tools that are used by them on a daily basis.

We are delighted to work with Alok and the Stellaris team! They have earned a strong reputation as true partners to the founders in the roller coaster ride of building startups and we look forward to a long partnership with the Stellaris team in building GTM Buddy”, he added. 

Alok Goyal, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners said, “Despite advances in underlying technologies, current sales enablement solutions fail to meet the needs of the users. They are mostly a user interface on top of a classical folder structure, with basic search and tracking capabilities. Like many other enterprise processes, we believe that this is a space ripe for disruption. With a veteran SaaS entrepreneur like Sreedhar leading the team at GTM Buddy, we are certain that the platform will be a gamechanger in the sales enablement space”. 

Prior to GTM Buddy, Sreedhar Peddineni co-founded Host Analytics, a SaaS platform and a market leader in the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) space, which was later acquired by Vector Capital. He later co-founded Gainsight, a category creator in the customer success space and a unicorn, which was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2020.  

Apart from Stellaris, GTM Buddy's investors include several prominent angel investors including Girish Mathrubootham, Nick Mehta, Ashish Gupta, Aneesh Reddy, Khadim Batti, Dilip Khandelwal and founders of several widely respected SaaS companies.

QuEST Global Appoints Alfonso Martínez As Global Business Head For Its Automotive And Rail Verticals

QuEST Global, a global product engineering and lifecycle services company, announced the appointment of Alfonso Martínez as the Global Business Head for its Automotive and Rail verticals. Martínez, will be responsible for further strengthening, expanding and driving both these verticals at QuEST. He will be based out of Madrid, Spain, and will report directly to Ajit Prabhu, Chairman & CEO, QuEST Global.

Automotive and Rail are the key growth areas for QuEST and the company aspires to emerge as a strong connected engineering player in these industries. With Martínez on board, the organization feels it will be able to further strengthen its endeavor to be the Most Recognized & Trusted Global Engineering Partner to its customers.

Alfonso brings with him myriad of useful industry experience acquired through his association with different industries over a period of three decades. He has an in-depth understanding of automotive and railway market and has successfully led numerous customer focused initiatives in the industry. With a perfect blend of attributes like entrepreneurship, management and technology, Martínez, joins QuEST from Capgemini, where he was the Executive Vice-President, Aeronautics Engineering and R&D. Based out of Paris, at Capgemini Engineering, Martínez was responsible for the global P&L for the entire Aerospace industry vertical.

Welcoming Martínez to QuEST, Ajit Prabhu, Chairman & CEO, QuEST Global, said, “For almost 25 years, we have established QuEST Global as a brand that is trusted by its customers world over. Martínez brings in deep domain knowledge and management expertise that I am sure will prove to be instrumental for our Automotive and Rail verticals – our key growth contributors. At a time when both these sectors are undergoing rapid technological advancements, under Martínez leadership I am sure we will be able to exploit the latent opportunities, solve the industry challenges and demands for our customers across the globe.”

On joining QuEST, Martínez commented, “I am excited to join a fast-growing company like QuEST that has, over the years, emerged as a truly global player in the product engineering services industry. We already have a good market presence in the automotive and rail verticals and with my expertise and domain knowledge, I look forward to working with the team to further expand this market creating a strong foothold in the industry.”

After completing his Master’s in Aeronautical Engineering from Polytechnic University of Madrid and AMP in Management from IESE Business School - University of Navarra, Barcelona, Martínez started his professional journey in 1997 with his own venture - M/s MEDIA Consultores. He successfully led this company with his friend for 10 years and grew it to 200 engineers. In 2006, the company was strategically integrated with Altran, now a part of Capgemini. Post the acquisition, Martínez assumed the key position of CEO-Altran Middle East, Director General-Altran Spain and Chief operating officer of Altran, Spain. In 2018, Martínez moved to Paris as the Group Senior VP, Altran. In this role, he was in charge of Aeronautics, Space, Defense, Naval, Railways, Transportation, Life Sciences and Chemicals verticals globally with an overall responsibility for 12,700 people and nearly USD 1B revenue.

Godrej Consumer Products Partners With InMobi To Pioneer Precision Marketing At Scale Using Personalized Video Communications

Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) partners with InMobi to enhance its digital marketing capabilities and pioneer precision marketing at scale. At a time when COVID-related personal hygiene and safety loom large on consumer mindshare, GCPL leveraged the power of personalized video to break through a high-clutter environment and build brand salience for its home insecticide brands. The personalized online videos delivered a significant 22% higher ad recall for the Kala HIT brand and its significant role in the media mix helped the home insecticide category record a 15% growth in revenue during the last Fiscal Year.

“Being a low-involvement category, our home insecticide brands such as Good Knight and HIT had to consistently stay top of mind for consumers by emphasizing the necessity of maintaining an insect-free home, avoiding vector-borne infections, and not letting things slip by while fighting the corona virus,” explained Pankaj Singh Parihar, Vice President and Head of Digital Marketing and Transformation at GCPL. “However, due to the pandemic, there was a shift in the behavior of our core target audience of women – especially mothers – as they were switching to digital-first channels such as on-demand video, casual gaming, and other apps on their mobile. And they preferred to consume this content, if available, in their native language. This provided GCPL with a unique opportunity to identify and engage with connected consumers in an intelligent and personalized manner at scale.”

Videos on mobile devices have a 3x higher engagement than other formats. Keeping in mind India’s diverse culture and the multiple languages spoken, GCPL created vernacular video communication to attract the Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam speaking consumers. This meant that with 105 unique mobile-first video assets (7 brands, 3 unique videos per brand, and 5 languages), GCPL delivered over 90 million personalised videos to connected women consumers in India. These videos saw 2.5x higher engagement, 1.5x better completes, and a 50% boost in efficacy (compared to industry benchmarks). The brand then retargeted engaged audiences, nudging them to consider and ultimately purchase the product on interactive shoppable mobile experiences. As a result, over 10% of the audiences that were reached moved from top-of-the-funnel to conversion.

Commenting on the collaboration with InMobi, Pankaj Singh Parihar said, “Over the past few years, GCPL has increasingly integrated digital capabilities into how it markets and engages with consumers. By combining our first-party data and InMobi’s comprehensive expertise on programmatic and consumer intelligence, we unlocked full-funnel efficiencies. Be it identifying custom audiences, engaging them with personalized communication on their primary devices, or capturing brand perception and preferences of category users, we have truly scaled our digital marketing objectives to success. Through this partnership with InMobi, we are building stronger and more meaningful consumer connections. As a result, we have not only seen an uplift in sales and ROI but also witnessed a transformational change in the way connected devices are truly making an impact in this world today.”

“Over the years, InMobi has established itself as a global leader in the programmatic space. Translating GCPL’s brand objectives into business success was achieved with a well-planned approach and meticulous implementation. GCPL has successfully leveraged InMobi’s programmatic platforms – Exchange, Audiences, DSP, and Pulse – as part of its digital transformation strategy to pioneer precision marketing. It's delightful to see the collaboration create the right impact in the minds of the consumer and help maximize ROI,” said Vasuta Agarwal, Managing Director, Asia Pacific at InMobi.

MIT-MAHE Marks Its Position Worldwide In The International Rover Design Challenge 2021

Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) is elated to announce its big achievement in the International Rover Design Challenge (IRDC) 2021. MIT has bagged the 3rd position out of 32 teams from 4 countries in the 2nd edition of IRDC which was announced by The Mars Society South Asia (MSSA).

The second edition of The International Rover Design Challenge (IRDC) was organized by the Mars Society South Asia (MSSA) this year. MSSA is the official chapter of The Mars Society for the South Asian region. The Mars Society is the world's largest, most influential space advocacy organization dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of Mars. From MIT team Mars Rover Manipal had to submit a System Concept Review (SCR) within a set time frame and scored 530 points for the submission. 

Further to the accomplishment by the MIT students, Cdr. (Dr.) Anil Rana, Director of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) says, “Congratulations to the entire MRM team. You have made MIT and the entire MAHE very proud of your grit and determination. Well-done and many more successes to come in the future”

Team Mars Rover Manipal had 30 - members from 2nd and 3rd year engineering students designed rover parts keeping in mind the various factors that would be different on Mars. We were expected to carefully plan each subsystem of the rover, considering various extra-terrestrial conditions and parameters in the design. A 26-page report which included CAD, simulation, PCBs, graphs, and flowcharts were submitted alongside a short video. The competition was entirely virtual, and submission was from home.

IRDC, an online competition for university students, challenges them to design Mars rovers that are fully equipped and mission-ready for actual operations on Mars. Students are encouraged to be as imaginative, creative, and insightful as possible within the practical, implementable limits of humans. The competition took place during July-September, and 32 teams from 4 countries (India, Poland, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh) participated.