Chetan Patel
Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Chetan engages in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights
What inspired you to venture into the investment domain and entrepreneurship?
Investment’ is the only option through which you can be a silent partner of any business by a limited liability of investing some money, whereas the rest of the things are taken care of by that particular business. Even if I buy one share of a particular company, I become the co-partner of that company without even having an MOU with them. As I know that best of the talents are already working for that company today, definitely the profitability of that firm will go high and as a silent partner or shareholder of the company, I will be rewarded in due course. I am looking at investment as a passive partner partnership, and currently want to explore more in this particular dimension.
Share with us the expertise you
have acquired so far and how do you apply them in your current role?
We love investing in people because the efficiency of human beings can go multifold and at times 1000 times, that no other equipment in the world can do. India being a fully flooded knowledge capital, we want to identify those talented aspirants who can add value to our company and make them partners in our organization. We don't have any employees in our organization because I believe employment to be a kind of a monopolistic attribute. Rather, we search for the right talent and help them grow symbiotically along with the organizational progress.
At present, we are gradually moving from an investment advisory company to becoming a full-fledged financial powerhouse. We are already having a 35% stake in one of the leading cooperative banks in Andhra Pradesh, we have 10 listed companies on the BSE Stock Exchange, where we are holding more than 75% stake in all of those companies. This can only happen when a talented set of people want to drive themselves beyond their comfort zone. So, as an investment manager who is well-acquainted with the nuances of the industry for the last two and a half decades, I am gradually moving towards mentoring to help these talents by catering to the knowledge capital.
Define MWH Holdings as an organization and where is it positioned inthe industry? What are the company’s greatest strengths and unique propositions that it offers to its clients?
Irrespective of their passion or profession, all individuals work for money. MWH means ‘Money Work Here’ and this organization was formed with a clear perspective that money should work for us not and not the other way around. Reigning in this segment for more than a decade now, MWH started as a small advisory company for foreign international investors who want to come in invest in the capital markets of India and as we slowly moved into the value chain, MWH holdings has cemented its position as a prolific investment conglomerate based out of Singapore as well as amongst the Indian entities in the last one and a
We love investing in people because the efficiency of human beings can go multifold and at times 1000 times, that no other equipment in the world can do. India being a fully flooded knowledge capital, we want to identify those talented aspirants who can add value to our company and make them partners in our organization. We don't have any employees in our organization because I believe employment to be a kind of a monopolistic attribute. Rather, we search for the right talent and help them grow symbiotically along with the organizational progress.
MWH means ‘Money Work Here’ and this organization was formed with a clear perspective that money should work for us not and not the other way around Hobbies
At present, we are gradually moving from an investment advisory company to becoming a full-fledged financial powerhouse. We are already having a 35% stake in one of the leading cooperative banks in Andhra Pradesh, we have 10 listed companies on the BSE Stock Exchange, where we are holding more than 75% stake in all of those companies. This can only happen when a talented set of people want to drive themselves beyond their comfort zone. So, as an investment manager who is well-acquainted with the nuances of the industry for the last two and a half decades, I am gradually moving towards mentoring to help these talents by catering to the knowledge capital.
Define MWH Holdings as an organization and where is it positioned inthe industry? What are the company’s greatest strengths and unique propositions that it offers to its clients?
Irrespective of their passion or profession, all individuals work for money. MWH means ‘Money Work Here’ and this organization was formed with a clear perspective that money should work for us not and not the other way around. Reigning in this segment for more than a decade now, MWH started as a small advisory company for foreign international investors who want to come in invest in the capital markets of India and as we slowly moved into the value chain, MWH holdings has cemented its position as a prolific investment conglomerate based out of Singapore as well as amongst the Indian entities in the last one and a
half years. So, our goal is to slowly move from a traditional advisory company to an investment powerhouse with our own proprietary money. Last year, we were able to bring in around 3242 crores of Indian rupees across the Indian capital markets irrespective of the COVID situation in India. I think this year we can easily cross the mark of 1600 crores, if not more and with a limited number of 23 partners, I think this will be a good sum of amount as per our business size.
But down the line, we want to go into wholesale banking and acquire distressed cooperative banks, which can give us an edge in the market. We also want to grow very aggressively using data analytics and artificial intelligence because in the Indian context very few financial houses are using these technologies now although it's a regular occurrence in developed nations like the US. I think this can become a USP for us to penetrate the big market with a limited number of human resources in our organization.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
As Mr. MARKET teaches every day, patience and perseverance are the keys to over coming regular hurdles. When you face a particular challenge, take a step away from your feelings to make a plan. While it's important to consider your feelings, at the time of deciding your course of action, you would want to be as objective as possible. Face Fears and Act; taking action is one of the biggest steps in overcoming challenges. The foremost lesson that I have learned so far is to ‘accept the situation’ and focus on things within our control.
Chetan Patel, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, MWH Holdings
Chetan is very close to his family and loves to spend a lot of time with his family members. His wife Kinnari Patel is a finance professional. Chetan’s daughter Prarthee Patel is on the verge of completing Engineering and currently planning to move to US for further studies. His son Hardee is India’s top seeded Table Tennis Player in Under 15 years category.
Hobbies:Reading, Numerology Teaching
Favorite Book:Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Favorite Cuisine:Banana Leaf, South Indian
Favorite Travel Destination:
Dubai, Malaysia, Spain
But down the line, we want to go into wholesale banking and acquire distressed cooperative banks, which can give us an edge in the market. We also want to grow very aggressively using data analytics and artificial intelligence because in the Indian context very few financial houses are using these technologies now although it's a regular occurrence in developed nations like the US. I think this can become a USP for us to penetrate the big market with a limited number of human resources in our organization.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
As Mr. MARKET teaches every day, patience and perseverance are the keys to over coming regular hurdles. When you face a particular challenge, take a step away from your feelings to make a plan. While it's important to consider your feelings, at the time of deciding your course of action, you would want to be as objective as possible. Face Fears and Act; taking action is one of the biggest steps in overcoming challenges. The foremost lesson that I have learned so far is to ‘accept the situation’ and focus on things within our control.
Chetan Patel, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, MWH Holdings
Chetan is very close to his family and loves to spend a lot of time with his family members. His wife Kinnari Patel is a finance professional. Chetan’s daughter Prarthee Patel is on the verge of completing Engineering and currently planning to move to US for further studies. His son Hardee is India’s top seeded Table Tennis Player in Under 15 years category.
Hobbies:Reading, Numerology Teaching
Favorite Book:Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Favorite Cuisine:Banana Leaf, South Indian
Favorite Travel Destination:
Dubai, Malaysia, Spain