Chairman's Speech
From the Chairman’s Desk
Dear Shareholders,
The financial year 2013-14 has been a challenging one. The year began with a difficult
outlook and at one point of time it seemed that India was headed towards a period of
severe economic slowdown. Economic growth was clouded by a high inflationary environment
and mounting fiscal imbalance on account of elevated commodity prices, primarily Oil and
Gold. The year did, in the end, witness a decadal low in GDP growth. The recent
depreciation in the Rupee may translate into further stress on the economy.
However, I am pleased to note that some of the factors contributing to this growth
de-acceleration have begun to turn around. Inflation is softening, interest rates are
expected to fall and price of Oil and Gold have corrected. This has given room to both the
Government and a judicious Central Bank to pursue a more lenient economic policy. The
process of financial easing has begun with the new & stable government with majority
in India. The difficult economic environment and fear of country rating downgrade also
nudged the Government to bring in a slew of economic reforms and focus on balancing its
books. These reforms, in my opinion, are steps in the right direction and should hold the
economy in good stead in the long term.
For a developing economy like ours, sustained growth is an imperative and one of the
key requirements for the same is reigniting the investment cycle. Creating a conducive
environment for investments is the responsibility of the Government and the New
Government, to its credit, has earnestly attempted to address some of the issues facing
the Indian economy by embarking on the process of fiscal consolidation and ushering in
reforms. Another key element of reigniting the investment cycle is infusion of risk
capital. The Private Equity industry has been playing a stellar role in channelizing risk
capital into the country, and has emerged as one of the largest sources of fresh risk
capital for the economy.
Investors have not ignored India completely as evidenced by the record inflows in
listed equities space in recent times. The economic outlook is also expected to improve in
the near term. This, hopefully coupled with continued liquidity in the global markets, may
result in the Private Equity space witnessing more activity on the fund raising and
deployment front. My pleasure to inform you that entire equity share of your company had
been listed on BSE Ltd at the end of the last quarter of the Financial Year 2013-14
providing ready marketability of securities on a continuous basis adding prestige and
importance to the company. This will increase your company’s credential and we can
borrow from financial institutions easily as it is rated favorably by lenders of capital;
the company can also raise additional funds from the public through the new issue market
with a greater degree of assurance. The new funds sought to be raised break new ground for
the Company and are steps towards our ambition to build a more global fund house.
Developing a diversity of product profile targeting disparate risk Appetites, and
geographies, has been our focus during 2014-15.
Ramesh Chandra Daga
Chairman & Managing Director
20th day of May, 2014