Sashi Krishnan, CIO, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance said they have looked at sectors like FMCG and pharmaceuticals over the last couple of days, apart from infrastructure and IT sector.  He told CNBC-TV18 that they would continue to stay invested and continue to invest wherever they see value. 

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Sashi Krishnan:

Q: What are the kinds of flows that you are seeing in your Unit-Linked Insurance Plans (ULIP) schemes? If you are dispersing some funds into the markets, which areas are looking attractive at this point of time?

A: Normally, if one takes a look at insurance, we find a large amount of money comes in the last quarter of the year. We are seeing flows into our ULIP schemes even in the first quarter, though there could be a bit of slowdown.

We continue to keep investing in the markets wherever we see value and markets have corrected significantly by 35-40%. There are a lot of stocks and sectors that we see value in and in which we are investing even now.

Q: Would you use up all the headroom available to you under ULIP to put your money in equity? Are you holding back cash to perhaps park them in money market mutual funds or basically in a fixed income instrument and bide your time to buy? How much of your money is available? What percentage would be in cash or cash-related instruments? 

A: In percentage terms, we continue to hold in cash close to 13-15% of our money in our equity funds. That is simply because we believe that we will still get opportunities in this market.

There is a lot of stress in the market and we will watch how the earnings season goes through. There could be some stress on earnings in a large number of sectors that could bring price even lower.

Q: What sectors do you find attractive?

A: At this point in time, we are fundamentally looking at the market on a stock-specific basis. Wherever there is earnings visibility and wherever we believe that the macro headwinds have not impacted earnings too much, we are looking at those kinds of stories.

We have clearly looked at sectors like the Fast Moving Consumer Goods, or FMCG, and the pharmaceuticals over the last couple of days. But that does not mean that we have not looked at stocks in the infrastructure sector and stocks in the IT sector. We will continue to stay invested and continue to invest wherever we see value.