Predicting the Sensex, India''s key equity index, is an activity best left to day traders, chartists and talking heads on 24-hour news channels. For those who want to benefit from a decade or two of India''s rapid economic transformation, it might be far more rewarding to invest in 10 unknown companies and see one of them make it to the benchmark in 10 years.
Why should smart money bother with the 30 mature companies represented in the Sensex when there are cheaper options to take bets on everything from India''s shortage of teachers and electric power to the country''s newly acquired taste for wine?
This isn''t to say that the large companies in India are a write-off. They are all growing fast in the home market and many -- if not most -- have managements capable of executing ambitious cross-border takeovers, though to what extent those acquisitions will enrich investors is a different matter.
As for unlocking of shareholder value through restructuring, the billions of dollars of wealth created by the 2006 division of Dhirubhai Ambani''s empire between sons Mukesh and Anil would remain the touchstone for a long time to come.
Meanwhile, the Sensex, which rose to a record 18,658 yesterday, is now quoting at a 19 percent premium to its 18-year average price-to-earnings multiple.
It may be time for investors in India to discover the next set of winners. And that means combing the universe of 22,000 for-profit organizations -- companies, partnerships and family- owned businesses -- out of which at least 5,500 are ``diamonds in the rough,'''' says Alok Aggarwal, chairman of Evalueserve, a business-research company that has analysts in India, China and Chile.
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