Frequently Asked Questions

Itus was set up in the year 2017 by Naveen Chandramohan. The foundation of Itus was to focus on investing in growth-oriented companies while focussing on innovation. This focus-led growth can come from a combination of technology, product, customer experience, distribution and network. Throughout Naveen’s career, he observed that analysts focus on valuing companies using a linear framework of multiples which would not be suitable to the real world where things are non-linear. By researching across sectors, industries and market caps, Itus seeks to identify companies that are leading and benefiting from growth-led innovations around consumers, technology, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing platforms and financial services. Itus offers one fund which is a multi-cap focussed investment across sectors in India. The fund is structured as a Portfolio Management Service (PMS).

Drawing from Greek Mythology, we see Itus to be a mortal who was entrusted to protect Apollo’s life, one whom he had greatly revered. He was later granted Godhood, by Apollo (son of Zeus). Since then Itus became the Greek God of Protection. It is this same trust that we have built as a firm today, with our investors. At Itus, we believe that the only way to grow capital is to invest in innovation.

A research team rooted in over 40 years of experience in identifying and investing in growth solely across Asia & India. Along with a consistent track record of managing money of 10 years prior to setting up Itus. Despite its potential, Itus believes the full magnitude of investing in growth across market caps are often misunderstood and underappreciated by investors. Itus believes that its consistent investment process and active management of high-conviction portfolios capitalizes on growth in the long term.

Itus’ open architecture research seeks to capitalize on due-diligence and research through an open approach with the convergence of insights. At Itus we believe that a combination of top-down and bottom-up research allows us to size the investment opportunity, then detect and evaluate companies that are best positioned to benefit. To gain insights into many industries, Itus employs an open research strategy to gather information. Inputs include Itus’ own clients who happen to be business owners and promoters who are thought leaders in their fields, social media interactions, and crowd-sourced insights as people respond to Itus’ public research. By applying alternate data and technology to traditional approaches, Itus seeks to create a more transparent, creative and interdisciplinary investment process.

Itus’ investment process initially examines from the top-down how the sectors are changing and if there are any tailwinds for a sector due to market conditions from a global/local perspective. Itus employs an open research strategy to gather information, both helping to define and refine its internal research process. Inputs include clients who are thought leaders in their fields, social media interactions, and global industry experts as people respond to Itus’s public research. As a result of extensive and iterative research steps, Itus looks at the fundamental bottom up process to understand the company operating in the sector and its capital allocation process. Itus scores potential investments based on key metrics, inputting the values into a proprietary scoring system to quantify the companies in the context of the opportunity. Finally, as the CIO and Portfolio Manager, Naveen Chandramohan has the final accountability for the selection of investments and approval for all investment decisions.

Itus will trim or add to positions (i) if growth deteriorates; (ii) market-based volatility, giving a valuation comfort; or (iii) if the corporate governance deteriorates or capital allocation goes into unrelated areas (what we call the GPCG framework for evaluating each investment). Itus uses its own scoring system to value companies and monitor the underlying investment thesis. Historically, Itus has maintained an approximate churn rate of 20% in the portfolio on a year-on-year basis.

Itus manages its fund in a benchmark-agnostic manner. Despite this, Itus often illustrates the performance of its portfolios relative to Nifty 50. We do not have any compulsion to mimic any weights of a company if it happens to be a part of an index. Itus believes the companies it invests in will be prominent in such indices over a full market cycle.

During “risk-on” markets, Itus’ strategies should outperform. Investors come to recognize the misunderstood nature of many companies’ fundamentals and look to identifying companies that are leaders rather than the largest market capitalization company in a passive index. Volatility can be positive on the upside.

Itus normally would underperform in markets where the market values, deep discount value, investing over growth. This happens, in part, because the valuations sometimes revert to mean in many cases where there are discounts, and investors and advisors tend to return to such themes which Itus does not. Itus believes that at such times, the fundamentals of the companies held in its portfolios are sound and will ultimately result in value creation.

Itus suggests a horizon of a minimum of 3 years. This will ensure that the philosophy of Itus is fully understood and translates into compounding for the investors. Post the 3Y period, investors can take an independent decision about the rollover of capital for the next 3Y cycle.