Three emerging themes Saurabh Mukherjea is betting on, after Budget 2024

What does budget means for the market

Private capex, women empowerment and energy transition are the three themes that Marcellus Investment Managers’ Saurabh Mukherjea will be looking at in the next few months. Public sector capex, he explains, has gone up steadily during the last three budgets but now the Finance Minister has spoken about passing on the baton to the private sector. “We at Marcellus are trying our best to identify private sector capex plays,” he explained.

Also read: Delighted about fiscal consolidation; hope for more EV announcements post-polls: Saurabh Mukherjea

The next theme is women empowerment or “Nari Shakti”.  According to Mukherjea, there is a massive constituency that is aspirational, well educated, increasingly finding income and employment. “We are looking for more plays that cater to them. In a way, if I think about it, Nykaa, Mama Earth etc., are women-focused plays. I just wish they made a little bit more money, make it easier for us to invest. We're certainly looking forward to finding more such companies,” he said.

Mukherjea quoted RBI data that shows woman have more money in their bank accounts in urban areas than men and women have more bank accounts than men. “It's pretty powerful and I'm sure the powers that be in Delhi have realised that women have more jobs, more bank accounts and more money in those bank accounts than men. And we, as the stock market, are trying to catch up with them,” he quipped.

The third theme he said will continue to be energy transition. “We don't have to replicate the mistakes of China. The quicker we transition to EVs, the better. And if our EV ecosystem is efficient enough to become an exporter, then it also becomes a creator of jobs for the country,” he said. At Marcellus, Mukherjea said they are trying to capitalise on this theme as well.

Also read: Why Saurabh Mukherjea avoids real estate investments: ‘Not sure where is money coming from’

Expectations from the full budget

In the July budget, Mukherjea expects that some tax changes may be announced. The second, he suggests, could be stepping up disinvestments. “There've been several misses on disinvestment for several years. Obviously before the elections there's no point trying to disinvest a big PSU, it is just not tenable,” he said. The third area that the full budget could include would be with regard to trade treaties. “I don't think it is likely that the government will sign trade treaties this side of the elections, but it's pretty likely that on the other side of the elections we will see some of these announcements,” he says.

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