Sourajit Aiyer - Financial Express, Bangladesh - Deepening capital markets in frontier economies, Dec 2014
1. 3/22/2015 Deepening capital markets in frontier economies | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/2014/12/27/72915 1/6
VOL 22 NO 47 REGD NO DA 1589 | Dhaka, Saturday, December 27 2014
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Deepening capital markets in frontier economies
As the growth expectation in most frontiereconomies improves, what is the first step that can help translate this
growth into increased capital market activity?
The first would be looking at what one is selling. This means the supply of goodquality, growthrealising and
professionallymanaged companies into primary and secondary capital market. That will strengthen what the
market is offering to investors. A bad product can break the market, irrespective of efforts of market players. This
supply should move in line with the economies' growth. Otherwise, some investor activity may flow into lowgrade
companies, which would reduce their longevity. Broadening the base of quality companies will help focus most of
the investor activity solely on that base, and evince greater interest from both existing and new investors.
This would require creating an ecosystem around competitive advantages, entrepreneurship, growth capital,
regulations, foreign investments and technical partnerships. Frontier economies are identifying areas of competitive
advantages, which leverage on domestic demand or global sourcing. It includes sectors where productionmigration
can occur if costeffective resources are available locally. An example is Indian software sector, where production
migrated from the West since India offered costeffective skills. Competitive advantage provides a rationale to
invest and create enterprises for future growth. Countries with limited physical resources should tap intellectual
resources. Offshoring (KPO/BPO) is a sector which India has capitalised on. Midsized countries are partnering to tap
complementary resources and create broader production platforms. Many frontier economies lack highend
manufacturing technologies, restricting its ability to diversify. Including technologytransfers within foreign
investment agreements may help, but this really depends on bargaining power. Investors prefer companies which
develop a differentiation to capture market share ahead of peers, as that stretches its longterm potential.
Fostering entrepreneurship would require a change in the society's mindset of viewing it as a career option,
institutionalised incubation support and growth capital through private equity or VC funding, with the aim to list
eventually. Sunrise sectors based on productionmigration need to encourage nonresidents experienced in those
sectors to return from abroad, as their experience would be invaluable to build those businesses locally.
Posted : 27 Dec, 2014 00:00:00 A A A+
Sourajit Aiyer
2. 3/22/2015 Deepening capital markets in frontier economies | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/2014/12/27/72915 2/6
Listing of only a handful of quality companies for capital raising and trading can transform the interest level in the
markets. In India, it took few quality companies like Infosys, TCS, Airtel, Hero Honda, HDFC, etc to list since the
1990s and take market activity to the next level. Today, technology is the 2nd largest sector after banking, and
holds 15 per cent of India's US$1.5 trillion market capitalisation. Twenty years ago, this sector did not even exist.
Primary market activities have been a useful entry point for new retail investors into the markets in many
countries. Hence, largesize issues of goodquality companies would give a definite fillip to addition of new demat
accounts and aggregate market activity.
Earnings growth of these companies will be the main yardstick that sustains longterm interest in equity markets.
Price appreciation comes from earning growth and multiple expansion. Multiple expansion is good to some extent as
it reflects market optimism. But beyond a point, it suggests overheating and limited upside for new buyers. Earning
growth reflects the fundamental performance. It supports the multiple within reasonable range, helping continued
interest from newer investors. Frontier economies also need to look at dividend policy. Dividend is the only return
that valueinvestors realise as they buy and hold for long duration. Brazil has already initiated compulsory payouts
from profits.
It is worth remembering that the opportunity a country offers outranks other factors influencing investment flows.
This includes ease of doing business, where a frontier market like Bangladesh actually ranks higher than an
emerging market like India. India may have an opportunity advantage in sectors based on domestic demand since
Bangladesh's population is 13 per cent of India's. But global sourcing opportunities in each one's area of competitive
advantage can be on a more equal footing. Size of the local market is inconsequential here, since it depends more
on procuring resources and building an efficient production. Many of India's competitive advantages are in global
sourcing opportunities.
Is it better for retail to enter capital market through asset management route rather than directinvesting? What
should be the focus areas for firms to capitalize on this opportunity?
This writer is a firm believer in institutionalisation of retail savings into mutual funds. Provided the investor does not
redeem units in the shortterm, this has a better chance of realising longterm wealth from capital market. A
reason for retail's shortterm bias is the lack of faith and understanding in the scrips which a fund manager can
judge better. But this requires the investor to place faith in the fund manager's skills.
To mobilise retail savings, openend mutual funds often work better than closeend funds or ETFs. The allocation a
retail saver can make into funds has a limit. In most cases, he saves from a salary. However, he can invest this
limited allocation periodically each month. This salary would increase overtime, increasing his ability to allocate
overtime. More employees are entering jobs each year, and each would have the ability to allocate a portion of
earnings. All this means that the fund should enable accepting additional inflows on a periodic basis as people's
income increases, monthly income accrues and as more workers enter. The ability to allocate increases overtime.
Facilitating this would expand the fund's assets and the aggregate mobilisation into capital markets. This includes
intermittent, lumpsum investments and systematic investing plans (SIPs). In comparison, the assets of a close
end fund or ETF focused on retail get restricted to the inflows from the offer period.
Closeend funds bar subsequent inflows even if people get the ability to invest. ETFs require making demat
3. 3/22/2015 Deepening capital markets in frontier economies | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
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accounts, which can be perceived as additional paperwork. Openend funds can reach a larger base, as it does not
require a demat account, which is in itself a small base. Restricting the ability of expanding the asset base is
counterproductive to make a scalable and profitable asset management industry, especially in markets where
investor awareness about sophisticated products like ETFs and closeend funds is still evolving.
Firms, which combine asset management with stock broking, can gain from the funds' annuity income, to support
the cyclical broking income. Asset management is a business of scale, and the expansion of assets through open
end funds can be a focus area to maximise annuity fee.
Firms need to build a suite of differentiated funds aligned to market conditions and investor preference. That means
the assets can be switched between ownfunds depending on situations, and the valuecreation from the assets
remains captured within the group itself. On the other hand, too many 'metoo' products end up confusing the
investor. Apart from staple funds, firms might look at category/styled funds based on themes, cycles, sectors,
opportunity, geographies, volatility, etc. Unlike an index or market cap based product which captures all scrips,
category funds can leverage only those scrips exhibiting a certain rationale.
One may try 'marketleader' fund, which captures wellmanaged, marketleading companies across sectors, 'Value
BuyandHold' fund which captures valuepicks expected to realise growth over the longterm, or 'GlobalAccess'
product which gives exposure to foreign equities like the USA, Europe, India, etc. Global equity products help
benefit from growth stories of those countries, plus can be a useful cushion when the local country is undergoing
economic stress relatively.
However, globalaccess structures would need regulations on compliance, KYC, taxation, repatriation, etc. At
another extreme are 'Niche' funds, which concentrate on specific niches seeing local demand. Entertainment is a
popular niche in Asian countries. Niche funds might be invested in content production, although this is more
practical on the private equity side rather than for mutual funds.
Does that mean closeend funds or ETFs are not useful then in evolving markets?
They are useful products, provided they are used for the right objective. ETFs can be useful products for asset
allocation, especially for hardtoaccess asset classes or to invest at low costs. Enabling access to hardtoaccess
assets is a reason why gold ETFs or foreign equity ETFs based on Nasdaq 100 or Hang Seng became popular in
India. ETFs were convenient platforms to benefit from such assets which were otherwise not easily available. These
are also useful for institutional investors, to get allocation at low cost. Coresatellite portfolios of institutions often
combine highrisk assets with active funds in satellite positions to generate alpha, and lowrisk assets with lowcost
ETFs to balance the risk and costs. Institutions also use ETFs for shortterm, tactical positions to gain from changes
in market conditions. Subsequent inflows into ETF assets occur mainly from institutions, as they have the ability to
pay the huge amount for a creationunit. This is a basic reason hindering subsequent inflows from retail investors
into ETFs, curtailing its asset size unless it was able to generate the threshold corpus during the offer period itself.
Closeend funds are useful in terms of efficiencies in asset utilisation. However, in nascent capital markets where
awareness and interest are low, closeend funds often end up trading at severe discounts to NAVs. Traders in
developed markets latch on to funds trading at discounts, expecting that market prices would eventually trend
4. 3/22/2015 Deepening capital markets in frontier economies | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
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closer to the NAV and they can book gains. But this opportunity may be restricted in nascent markets, unless the
trader is prepared to hold till maturity when he redeems at NAV.
But that means locking in the capital. If the fund overshoots its deadline, that would be an added risk. Fund
trading at discounts may also impact the initial interest in newer closeend funds, since human nature always loves
buying anything at a discount later rather than paying the fullprice upfront. In developing countries looking to
mobilise increased savings into funds, closeend funds cannot accept subsequent inflows even if savers gain the
ability to allocate later. The fixed tenure means that longterm savings is not possible unless there is a new fund
available right around that redemption date.
The author is a finance professional based in Mumbai, India. Views expressed are entirely personal.
sourajitaiyer@gmail.com
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7. 3/22/2015 The risk of investing in the wrong product | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/2014/12/28/73018 1/6
VOL 22 NO 48 REGD NO DA 1589 | Dhaka, Sunday, December 28 2014
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VIEWS & REVIEWS
Deepening capital markets in frontier economiesII
The risk of investing in the wrong product
For directinvestors into equities, how can the risks be reduced to some extent? Should they even look at equities
in the first place?
Retail investors should definitely look at equity markets to enhance their savings over the longterm, be it through
directinvesting or through equity mutual funds. Comparisons across countries on inflationadjusted returns from
asset classes show equities outperforming debt, gold and real estate in the longterm, despite its inherent volatility.
This is all the more critical since most developing countries undergo high rates of inflation during their growth
phase, and hence investing only in bank deposits can be wealthdilutive in terms of future purchasing power.
The key word here is longterm. A challenge for deepening direct retail participation in equities is that retail interest
is mostly geared towards shortterm gains using intraday, futures and options and shortterm delivery. This is a
sureshot way of reducing his longevity, if that money forms a portion of his savings which he can illafford to lose.
Retail should have a longterm bias so that they realise equity appreciation. Shortterm trading should be restricted
to High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs) who have a higher risk appetite, and have allocated capital for each investing
style. The capital for shortterm trading comprises a smaller portion of their corpus, and so it has a limited impact
on the overall portfolio. If brokers look at overall trading volume from HNIs vs. retail in most markets, then HNIs do
form a substantial portion of that pool.
Investor education is important to reduce the risk of investing in the wrong product. Awareness of capital market
products is still low. In most cases, the investor needs to be made understand why this is important, to avoid
negative surprises later. The correct product should be based on investors' savings, spending, risks and goals.
Brokers may lose some business in the shortterm, but it might build a lasting participant base in the longterm.
Education is also critical since capital market products are nondiscretionary spends. This means that most do not
yet feel the need to demand this, unlike food, garments or phones. People have to be made aware of the necessity
to invest if the market has to deepen. Many developing countries see low propensity to save, where longterm
Posted : 28 Dec, 2014 00:00:00 A A A+
Sourajit Aiyer
8. 3/22/2015 The risk of investing in the wrong product | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/2014/12/28/73018 2/6
savings is actually needed since governments hardly provide social security. People have to be made aware why
they should invest some savings in capital markets, including diversifying risk through mutual funds, holding for
longterm, financial planning and assetclass balancing, if they have to reduce the risks and create longterm
wealth.
To address volatility risk to some extent, brokers may pitch basket of stocks based on specific styles/themes, rather
than just individual scrips. That might reduce singlestock risk. Retail often falls prey to 'herdmentality' in calls,
which accentuates volatility further. Uncertainties over corporate performance can be reduced by addressing
regulations, approvals and delays. Information access through computerised trading offers realtime price discovery,
limits arbitragethrillers and reduces impact costs. This includes broker terminals and online trading platforms.
Online platforms have made trading convenient irrespective of location, time or onthemove. Information access
includes financial portals, business news channels and magazines dedicated to provide analysis and insights.
Transparent reporting and corporate governance would reduce risk of information opaqueness. Equity derivatives
might add to market volatility, and so brokers need to target F&O only to clients best suited for this. Any
speculation by lowrisk clients will reduce longevity and brokers will constantly need to replace them with new
clients.
If equity risk is absolutely unacceptable, capital market also includes fixedincome debt market for direct investors.
Corporate debt instruments are picking up to complement bank credit. Those searching for lower risklevels can
look at longterm bonds and debentures.
Is financial planning and advisory absolutely critical to achieve the objective of longterm wealth creation through
capital market products?
Our countries are largely financiallyilliterate, although meaningful pools of money exist. Financial planning would
help channelise this money into products based on the investors' objectives, abilities and profile. We stress the
importance of investor awareness regarding capital markets. That is all the more reason why planning is needed to
deepen this market. But planning has to be based on an AUMbased incentive. In comparison, commissionbased
incentive can create a bias for products that give the best commission, but it may not be the best for the investor.
That leads to negative surprises and early redemptions. Instead, AUMbased structure works best to enhance the
investors' assets.
Timing the market is where the selfinvestor often goes wrong, i.e. sells low and buys high. Once they burn their
fingers through wrong calls, the selfinvestor often ends up delaying decisions in further calls to avoid similar
instances. This inertia expands the downside risk even further. Advisory might enable action on the correct calls at
the correct time, and realise upside. This includes both buy and sale calls. Sitting on lossmaking, lowgrade stocks
is a psychological feature of retail. They hope that prices would rise eventually, which rarely happens. In the
process, they forgo better investment opportunities had they only liquidated their lowquality stocks and redeployed
into better scrips.
Financial advisors and planners also help sensitise investors about new products. Savers in many developing
countries favour physical savings over financial savings. However, innovations have today married physical savings
with financial products like Gold ETFs and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). Awareness of these products is
9. 3/22/2015 The risk of investing in the wrong product | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/2014/12/28/73018 3/6
still low, and advisors can help here. India saw tremendous interest in Gold ETFs as awareness picked up.
Innovations have moved up further in REITs. While traditional REITs invested in incomegenerating commercial
properties, the lack of housing stock made Kenya think of Development REITs, which invests in developing
residential housing.
What trends can frontier markets expect from foreign institutional flows into local capital markets?
For brokers, foreign institutional flows into equity markets (foreign portfolio investors) are a battle for market share.
This is unlike retail flows where the focus is also on increasing the market size. Global allocations are decided by the
asset manager for the respective countries the fund takes exposure to, often based on MSCI or FTSE indices. Each
broker has to maximise his market share within this allocation. However, funds may decide to go underweight or
overweight on allocation depending on market conditions, which may impact the overall allocation.
What this means for deepening the local capital market is that the flow per fund is restricted based on the
allocation. Hence, expanding the foreign investor segment will depend on increase in the number of funds, rather
than flow per fund. The universe of global funds investing in frontier economies currently comprises of broad FM
funds, Asia FM funds, rather than countrydedicated funds or focusedgeography funds. As the FMs perform, there
will be a trend towards countrydedicated funds. For example, the main categories of global funds looking at India
include broad EM funds, Asia Pacific ex Japan funds, BRIC funds and Indiadedicated funds. The Indiadedicated
funds and focused BRIC funds materialised only when global investors built faith on the Indian economy and hence
saw a rationale. Some funds might be index ETFs making asset allocations and chasing market returns during
upcycles, while some would be activelymanaged funds chasing stockpicks to earn alpha. In most cases, the active
funds would benefit the local markets in the longterm, since ETF flows can fluctuate based on asset allocations.
While enabling economic transformation depends on the local government and industry, the local capital market
community can play a role in disseminating their country's story and the analysis of the investible themes/ sectors/
stocks to the global investor community through corporate roadshows, analyst meets and engagements with global
fund managers. Today, fund managers are swamped with information on various geographies. They don't need
more information. But they do value insights, ideation and analysis which help them pinpoint specific
opportunities. This means creating valueaddition through research, salestrading and corporate access. Value
addition through research delivers thematic ideas, investing ideas, business trends, industry voices, sector and
company analysis, as well as supports funds in their own analytical work. Valueaddition through salestrading
means having an adequate base of institutional investor relationships to facilitate trades in slightly illiquid counters,
as well as block trades. Valueaddition through corporate access means getting investors to meet the who's who of
the local government and companies so that they get better updates on what is happening on groundzero. To
support these initiatives, brokers have to invest in research and ideation skills, largetrade abilities and building
institutional relationships.
Another factor that influences the growth of countrydedicated funds is the aggregate portfolio volatility of the
whole basket. The correlation between the countries in any emerging basket is low initially, since the linkage
between them is low. What impacts one hardly impacts the other! This means risks are localised and aggregate
portfolio volatility is low. However, as the economies grow and its global linkages increase, they become susceptible
to global shocks. This impacts portfolio volatility and fund managers see a rationale to develop countryfocused
10. 3/22/2015 The risk of investing in the wrong product | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
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funds.
Foreign investment in projects (strategic FDI) through foreignowned companies, jointventures or inward
acquisitions is critical as it increases the supply of companies for the future and improves market activity when they
unlock value. Investment banks should look at QIP route for capitalraising. QIPs leverage on institutional investors,
where the retail interest in IPOs is low. IPOs themselves have to be fairly priced, otherwise it impacts eventual
returns and reduces interest from subsequent issues. Predominance of familyowned businesses is a challenge for
investment bankers and private equity funds, since family promoters are resistant to stake dilution. Private equity
in itself can be a useful route to expand the corporate base, as they bring in global experience in similar industries,
strategic alignments and management inputs. Local regulators also need to put in place guidelines for offshorefund
structures, including MasterFeeder structure and simplify the fundraising process. Tax treaties with countries to
avoid doubletaxation would help. The market also needs to deepen liquidity for scrips by developing market
makers, who act as valuable counterparties for trade.
Some of the imperatives needed from the government and regulators?
Facilitation to companies through singlewindow clearances and access to foreign capital by addressing
taxation/repatriation come to mind. Things that scare investors like changing regulations retrospectively,
corruption in governance or changes in guidelines with a change in government, are best avoided. Political
instability and insurgency extremism become challenges but global investors and countries which counter these
challenges will benefit. The economic performance and state of public finances will also be monitored, a reason why
Vietnam or Bangladesh looks better. Regulations need to move with fixed deadlines in place, and all the working
and sittings of the committees need to work backwards with that deadline in mind. Only then can these countries
deliver on required regulatory changes in time.
The capital market industry itself needs to be wellregulated. Lowquality institutions can be counterproductive to
deepening the market. This includes increased roles to selfregulating organisations (SROs), as well as fast action on
any malpractices so that investors' faith is not shaken.
Any last thought on any imperative needed as the markets deepen further?
Manpower supply is worth mentioning as an endnote. This includes leadership which brings insights of what works
and what may not, as the markets expand. This includes advisors with client relationships. This includes analysts
with research skills and institutional relationships. This includes BSchool faculty with industryexperience, who
train the next generation of management graduates. This includes data analysts who can provide business
intelligence to assist strategic decisionmaking. This includes training in softskills, as well as product training.
Competition is high. A lot of countries, and asset classes within each country, are fighting for foreign and local
monies. Countries which do not act fast to put necessary rules and facilities in place will lose out. Nifty future on
Singapore Exchange is an example, which has taken away trading market share from NSE's Nifty future because
NSE has been slow to respond. Every market has its own unique challenges, irrespective of its stage or maturity.
Investments into expanding the market's capacity can be calibrated at a realistic pace to test the market and
reduce upfront risk. However, investments cannot be frozen totally as competition will not wait.
11. 3/22/2015 The risk of investing in the wrong product | VIEWS & REVIEWS | Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh
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The author is a finance professional based in Mumbai, India. Views expressed are entirely personal.
sourajitaiyer@gmail.com
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