Contrarian bet advocate and small-cap specialist Siddhartha Bhaiya, Managing Director and CIO of Aequitas Investment Consultancy, passed away on December 31 due to cardiac arrest, while on a family vacation in New Zealand.
He was just 47.
“Siddhartha was the driving force behind Aequitas,” the investment firm told its investors in a note, adding that he was not only a visionary investor but also a builder of institutions.
A chartered accountant, Bhaiya founded Aequitas in 2012, “to break free from the conventional ways of wealth generation” of investors. Prior to starting it, he had over a decade of experience in the asset management industry. For him generating returns was more important than building AUMs, which he saw as a byproduct.
From ₹10 crore in 2013, Aequitas’ AUM has grow to over ₹7,700 crore now.
Bhaiya was known for taking bold bets in his hunt for multibaggers and for generating alpha for investors. Just three weeks back, he posted on LinkedIn, “The market PE doesn’t matter., The valuations of your portfolio matters.”
“His ability to combine rigorous analysis with clarity of purpose shaped Aequitas into a distinctive organisation grounded in strong values, robust processes and a culture of accountability,” the firm said in its note.
Prior to founding Aequitas, Bhaiya was a fund manager, “one of the youngest” at the portfolio management services division of Nippon India Mutual Fund, his LinkedIn profile showed.
He also had worked at companies such as Stratcap Securities, Principal PNB AMC & Reliance Capital Asset Management.
Harsh Gupta Madhusudan, Fund Manager, Ionic Asset by Angel One, wrote on microblogging site X, “I am very shocked to hear about Siddhartha Bhaiya. He lived in my building, a very friendly acquaintance, an independent minded and genuinely contrarian investor and entrepreneur. Very health conscious: he was regular at the gym.”