I’ll try to list here the best investible funds for NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) who would like to participate in the India growth story. These are funds that are domiciled outside India, and for regulatory purposes, are not accessible to residents of India.
Foreigners will take forever to wake-up to the phenomenal opportunity of India, but NRIs – please note and take advantage, these are outstanding options for compounding your long-term wealth.
SageOne India Growth Fund – based out of Singapore & the US. Min $100K.
This is probably the most “meteoric” fund I know of. From Apr’09 – Feb’17 (~8 years), they achieved ~34% annualized in USD terms, a >10x multiplier, after fees. They clearly discovered more than one extremely successful company to invest with early on. Most of their quarterly newsletters and presentations are online. I’ve written more about SageOne under their domestic fund page here.
Update : As of Jan 2017, there is a way to access / subscribe to SageOne for residents of India – they are now registered with SEBI & provide a PMS option as well (a separately managed account).
There are two other funds which are also very good – ValueQuest and Malabar but both require significantly larger entry cheques, for no added advantage. I’ve listed above what I believe is the best option.
Value Investing options in India 
Can you kindly advise what is the level of safety investing in this Fund? Given that the entry size is nearly $100k or 67 Lacs, which is huge.
What are the expected downsides of investing in such a huge ticket entry fund?
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Hi Bhargav,
your 2nd question suggests that the downside consideration should be less relevant for a fund with 5L entry. (not true) Value investing is not speculative profit-seeking. The first goal is minimizing the chance of loss of capital.
There is no magic answer to the question of “safety in investing”. Ideally the person managing monies for you has deep experience in the markets, and has thought long and hard about one of the central questions in investing which is “am I protecting capital while investing?”
To benchmark, a fund like SageOne would in EU or US be only accessible at a $500K entry. In that sense, $100K is very reasonable. By Indian standards, PMSs have a 25L min but this is now more often 50L. So 67L is not that far off.
It may, however be the largest cheque you’ve considered writing & naturally there will be some hesitation. I’m not advising on anything, and most certainly not for any fee; I’ve only suggested SageOne as the best option for NRIs to invest through. Finally, you’ve to do study the fund, read all their letters, see interviews etc and decide. The PMS page has plenty of material on this fund.
You should avoid investing if you have debt (mortgages etc). Apart from zero-debt, other assumptions – you already have set aside funds both in the US (or whichever country you may be in) & India for near & dear ones; you will continue to work in the US for 5+ years (your monthly income stream provides a cushion); you will not need these funds for the next 5 years (a true “fill-it, shut-it, forget it” situation); $100K does not constitute the vast majority of your life-time savings (across asset-classes)
Please also consider : https://valueinvestingfundsindia.wordpress.com/how-to-manage-your-return-expectations/
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Hello Admin ,
Thanks for doing wonderful job
Just want to provide an update regarding sageone’s this offering that they have increased entry barrier to $250,000 and also you need to satisfy few of conditions to invest in the fund.
But I 100% agree with you that this fund has been impressive performer.
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Dear Milind,
Sorry for the delayed reply.
Thanks a lot for the update, I’ll update the page accordingly 👍
What are the other required conditions btw?
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sorry for late reply,
Apart from usd 250,000 the main requirement is you need to be accredited investor(they are different depending upon if you reside in singapore , USA or any other country)
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