The Mysterious Professor M

Professor Shivanand Shankar Mankekar is well-known name amongst Dalal Street veterans

A slightly balding man in his mid-fifties, of medium height who lives near Matunga station. The description could fit any number of middle-class individuals who live in Mumbai.

However, Professor Shivanand Shankar Mankekar is no ordinary academician. For one, his stake in United Spirits is worth almost Rs.500 crore at the share price of Rs.3030 announced by Diageo.

He also has significant stakes in Talwalkars Better Value Fitness Ltd and MT Educare, among others.

A well-known name amongst Dalal Street veterans, he is said to have been active in the market since the eighties. He shot to fame in 2003 when he became an early investor in Pantaloons, where is said to have managed a hundred-bagger, market parlance for making a hundred times his original investment.

 

He is not said to be tied down to a single investment style, practicing a flexible mix of investing on the basis of value parameters such as a strong track record at beaten down valuations while remaining willing to invest in early stage companies which are yet to hit the market.

His investment in Wockhardt is said to typify the former. He invested in the company as it dropped to sub-400 levels per cent on high debt and other concerns. He rode it all the way to levels in excess of Rs.2000. Talwalkars is a company he invested in before it got listed. His association with the company goes back to 2006, or around four years before it got listed in 2010. Both were multibaggers.

Pantaloons is an example of a pick which he backed even if it did not fit the typical value parameters. At the time he bought into Pantaloons, the company was operating on negative cash flows, the return on equity was low and the company was focused on growth through borrowings.

His shrewd judgment of investments also extends to his other activities.

His son and he both teach at a number of storied management institutes and had a coveted internship program where the competition to get in was fierce.

One young lady who prepared arduously to get into the program broke into tears when the father-son duo said that she could leave after only one question on the pharmaceutical segment. The gentlemen were equally distressed at her reaction, and had to explain to her that her answer was not only correct; but displayed sufficient knowledge of the sector that further questions were unnecessary. She had already been selected on the basis of the one answer.

Nobody truly knows the worth of all his holdings. Disclosures suggest that United Spirits account for the bulk of his portfolio or more than 85% of the value of his holdings which are in the public domain. But disclosures are only required if holdings in a company are more than one per cent.

When Business Standard reached out to him, his son conveyed that they preferred to stay out of the limelight and declined comment.