Exciting Opportunities By 2020: Real Estate & Services Sector

Looking at the positive trends in the Domestic Economic Health Indicators, like Improving Macro economic factors, Controlled Inflation, Currency Stability, Moderate Interest Rate, Capital Flows and Policy reforms. It is being observed that there is a rising share of private consumption in the GDP and recovery is being seen in the form of expansion in new Business and output.
 

This article covers the views of Mr. Sukumar Rajah, Managing Director & CIO (Asian Equity), Franklin Templeton Investments while talking to ET Now. He says that the Real Estate and the Services sector could provide exciting opportunities by 2020.

- Vijay Thapliyal

Edited excerpts:

I was counting the years, I have been observing you manage money for nearly 20 years now.

Yes!! More than 20 years.

In coming two to three years, where do you think we are headed to? If someone who is tempted to buy securities at the current juncture after the recent run-up, what do you think this market has to offer now?

Basically, the prospects for the economy and a lot of companies are becoming much better. The market has moved-up but, if you look at how the individual securities are valued, there are still a lot of opportunities. The market is going to become broader over a period of time. There is a drive to improve the corporate governance and innovation across companies. The economy is becoming more robust with the better opportunities for companies with fair practices. I am more optimistic about finding good opportunities in the market than ever before.

The big talking points this morning is ITC and the likes considering the government has now levied that extra cess on tobacco manufacturers along with that 28% GST, which I guess was bound to happen. Your thoughts on how some of these “sins” need to be approached, because in the past as well we have seen that the government has clamped-down on tobacco manufacturers. This has made them undertake steep price hikes but, in the end, the volumes do manage to stabilize and the cigarettes for instance continues to be the largest revenue contributors for the likes of ITC. But, do you think now is the time to turn away from some of this kind of companies?