SBI’s fund deployment key to future growth: Sandip Agarwal

Synopsis

Sandip Agarwal notes the Indian investor's increasing maturity, moving beyond panic selling to strategic buying after initial market dips. He suggests PSU banks, like SBI, may outperform private sector banks due to their deposit franchise amidst NIM compression from rate cuts. Investors are keenly awaiting SBI's results and future strategies for deploying raised funds.

"It is not like earlier when there used to be panic and everything used to get sold. There could be panic for two-three days, but people then put their mind together, think, and come back and they buy what they want to buy, which they would have missed in the past. So, that is a very-very mature evolution of Indian investor which we are witnessing in last one, one-and-a-half years in a big way," says Sandip Agarwal, Fund Manager, Sowilo Investment Managers.

Indeed a good afternoon because look at the recovery that we have seen in the market today, yet another session high, 24,570 thereabouts is where we are at. What have you made of this entire move that we have seen today? The resilience with which we started, the dip that we have seen, and the recovery, how are you reading the way the market has assimilated this tariff news today?

Sandip Agarwal: So, I would only say that markets are always ahead of time and smarter. And the worst was already priced in. The way things were panning out from last few days and generally, I was listening to one of the previous commentator and he was saying that it is last leg of Trump’s negotiations skill they have seen in all previous deal, that it becomes very tough at the last and so deal is nearby. So, markets are making some sense out of that also. But fundamentally, lot of good opportunities are available and at good price and now, investors are very-very smart. It is not like earlier when there used to be panic and everything used to get sold. There could be panic for two-three days, but people then put their mind together, think, and come back and they buy what they want to buy, which they would have missed in the past. So, that is a very-very mature evolution of Indian investor which we are witnessing in last one, one-and-a-half years in a big way.

Your sense on SBI, what are you making of SBI’s numbers and not only SBI in particular, this time around your read through on how PSU banks have performed in quarter one?
Sandip Agarwal: PSU banks will be slightly better off than the private sector banks because of the deposit franchise and the NIM compression which will happen because of the rate cut which has happened. So, I believe that public sector banks do have some advantage over the private sector banks and that is the reason we believe that SBI may surprise little bit positively. The only thing which we need to see is that the fundraise which they have done, how they are going to deploy what all, means if there is any new vision, any new thing to do, grow aggressively the book, something. So, we will get more detail on that, and everyone is keenly awaiting tomorrow’s result and followed by call to get more details on that part because there will be a compression in NIM for everyone that is quite known.

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