NEWSLETTER December 2011 From the President’s DeskWish you and your near and dear ones a Happy , Healthy and Prosperous 2012! One of the most challenging years in recent times: 2011 has come to an end and I am sure all of us would heave a sigh of relief. Almost everything that could have been a headwind forinvestors in India has happened; whether it's the negative global environment and news flow or the domestic political and economic data points. We enter 2012 with optimism but also uncertainty. Whether the current challenges are already factored into the current market valuations? Can the possible fall in inflation and interest rates be the t rigger for revival in investor sentiments? Will decision making be the biggest factor to track? There are many more questions that remain unanswered. We start the year with an attempt to get some answers to these questions through our much awaited S econd Annual Investment Conference. The lineup of speakers' is excellent and it promises to be an exciting and enlightening event for every finance professional. Please take benefit of the same. The last quarter was a very busy quarter yet again for IAIP. The India leg of the CFA Institute Research Challenge concluded in Decemberand was a resounding success. This event has become the premierresearch challenge event for B-schools in India. This year almost every top B-school in India participated in the challenge. The welcome ceremony for new professionals also saw record atte ndees and was also graced by top CFA officials. I once again reiterate, more action and events are planned in the coming months and the events would be more enjoyable if more members participate. Thus once again, it's a request for all to participate as volunteers as well as attend every event at IAIP. Your suggestions fortopics of interest are also welcome. Thanks and best wishes! Sunil Singhania, CFA 1 MEMBER SOCIETY OF Kindly visit for more notes and photographs of the events. ---------------------------------------------------- Elizabeth has been actively helping society for various events organized by it and issues faced by members. You could reach her at iaip.wordpress.com [email protected]. p2 IAIP - Volunteer Day th Oct obe r 16 , 20 11 IAIP organized a Volunteer Day on Sunday October 16th at Holiday Inn, Mumbai with the objective ofencouraging members... p4 IAIP Challenge 2011 - CFA Institute Research Challenge in India th Dec emb er 13 , 201 1 IAIP concluded the National Finalsof CFA Institute Investment Research Challenge in Mumbai on December 13th 2011. p7 Welcome Ceremony For New Professionals th De cember 14 , 201 1 CFA Charter, considered the GlobalPassport and Gold Standard by theinvestment fraternity worldwide, isearned after putting in considerabletime and effort. In this Issue
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IAIP organized a Volunteer Day on Sunday October 16th at Holiday Inn, Mumbai
with the objective of encouraging members to come forward and volunteer for the
society, evaluate their interests in various activities & committees, gain insights
from their existing society leaders and volunteers, share experience with each other
and have fun networking. The session helped past, present and potential volunteers
gain new perspectives, explore own strengths and self-actualization. Lastly
volunteers could come out as more committed, connected, and creative in a
collaborative work environment.
To make the session more interesting IAIP invited, Pratapaditya Chakravarty,
popularly named PACO, to talk about volunteerism, building and uniting teams for
a common cause, expanding horizon on both professional as well as personalfronts. He started with the fact that The Eiffel Tower was build to demonstrate that
Iron is lighter than stone by a group of people, who were all volunteers! The team
lead by Gustave Eiffel included 50 engineers, 100 Iron workers, 120 construction
workers. The 324 metre & 108 stories tower took 18,038 pieces of metal, 2.5mn
rivets and 60MT of paint.
So all the volunteers who attended the session were divided into 6 groups and given
a task to build a replica of Eiffel Tower using wheat flour, which combined with
water becomes binding material, spaghetti representative of iron structure, and
water colors. The time allotted – 20 minutes. All the members discussed, designed,
planned, collaborated and built the coveted Tower. Everybody thoroughly enjoyed.
Through this fun session PACO passed on some very memorable messages on
volunteerism:
Ÿ Volunteering gives you an opportunity to make a difference to people's lives in
your community. You can use your skills and experience to help and enrich the
local community.
Ÿ Volunteering can enhance your future employment prospects and enable
employers to see that you have developed the necessary skills you may need in
their organization.
Ÿ Volunteering gives you a chance to get experience in a field you would like to
Ÿ Many of the volunteer projects will include training, which will be useful both
on the project and in later life.
Ÿ Volunteering gives you the chance to meet people both from within and outside
the industry who you would not normally come across.Ÿ Volunteering gives you the opportunity to test out potential career choices.
Ÿ Volunteering provides you with development opportunities that are not always
possible with paid employment, for example; communication and people skills,
organizational and time management skills, planning and budgeting skills.
Ÿ Volunteering can help you build links with particular organizations like
Schools, FE Colleges and specific community organizations.
Ÿ Volunteering is fun and fulfilling, allowing you to experience many diverse
opportunities not always available to you elsewhere.
So what are you waiting for? Take a leap. Get in touch with your society leaders and
active volunteers.
To seek for more information and opportunities for Volunteering and register 1 2
kindly visit or .
You could also get in touch with Elizabeth at .
About PACO:
Pratapaditya Chakravarty, popularly known as Paco, has more than a decade of
experience in exceeding SLAs and C-Sat scores for internal and external customersand has been associated with EDGE – The Learning Academy, Reliance Capital
Asset Management Co. His specialties are project management, performance
CFA Institute Research Challenge in India December 13th, 2011
IAIP concluded the National Finals of CFA Institute Investment Research
Challenge in Mumbai on December 13th 2011. The four teams, which made it to the
finals after the equally tough regional rounds, gave brilliant presentation of the
investment thesis on the respective companies and responded well to the questions
raised by the distinguished panel of judges. Bloomberg, NSE and Bloomberg UTV
were the sponsors of the event. The two winning teams will represent India at the
APAC finals in Hong Kong on March 2nd, 2012.
For the starters the process started almost 3 to 4 months ago. IAIP Challenge task
force screened and finalized the companies under $4bn in market capitalization for
each of the four regions of the country – North, South, East and West. It invited and
shortlisted 32 business schools to participate in the competition. Then it brought on board a host of graders who evaluated the reports from each of the team and ranked
them, mentors who guided the teams in preparing the reports, presentation and
Q&A sessions and finally the judges for each of the regional rounds and national
finals. Besides the task force arranged for venues, scheduled company
presentations, managed logistics and worked to the minutest details. Needless to
say they were able to convince and bring in the sponsors for this event.
The judges for the National finals were Sunil Singhania, CFA, Ramesh Damani,
Ratnesh Kumar and Alan Meder, CFA (brief given below). They provided some
valuable feedback to the students which would also be applicable to practicing
professionals. Firstly, due to limitation of time one has to focus on few points which
will corroborate the broad conclusion consistently. A brief background of the
company especially to the international audience who may not be familiar with the
local companies is always helpful. It is like educating the people on an investment
idea. At the same time they need not overload, or run the slides faster or yell.
Likewise using the financial statements and figures in global currency like the USD
and using international conventions like millions instead of crores will be helpful.
Overall, the panelists were impressed by the performance of each team and quality
of their presentations.
Panel discussion: Investment Outlook For Indian Equities
Following the National finals, IAIP organized a short panel discussion on the
investment outlook with the same set of judges and Vivek Law as an anchor from
Bloomberg UTV which broadcasted it live as well as repeated the telecast twice toits TV audience. While the panelist were optimistic about the long term investment
story about India, they were nervous about the government policy gridlock,
corruption issues, ban on mining, lack of orders for infrastructure projects,
Ratnesh Kumar, is Managing Director and Head, at Standard Chartered Securities
India (SCSI)
Alan Meder, CFA, is SVP and Chief Risk Officer, at Duff & Phelps InvestmentManagement Co. and also Vice Chair, CFA Institute Board of Governors
Ramesh Damani, is seasoned investor with over two decades of experience and
popular for his show on CNBC TV18 “Wizards of Dalal Street”.
About CFA Institute Research Challenge
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global competition which tests the
analytic, valuation, report writing, and presentation skills of university students.
Students have the unique opportunity to develop and present an equity research
report and be mentored and judged by leading industry experts. Local CFA Institutemember societies host and launch local competitions involving teams of three to
five business and finance students from participating universities who work
directly with a local company in researching and preparing a company analysis.
The local winning teams will advance to the respective regional finals held in Asia
Pacific; Europe, Middle East & Africa; Americas; and New York regions. The
regional winners will then advance to the global final in the hopes of being crowned
the global champion.
To learn more about the CFA Institute Research Challenge,
Follow us on website ( );
Twitter ( );Facebook ( );
YouTube ( )
To learn more about the competitions held in India,
Follow us on website ( );
Twitter ( );
Facebook ( )
We are pleased to announce that the Videos for CFA Institute Research Challenge in
India National Finals and Investment outlook for Indian Equities held on 13th Dec
2011 at Mumbai on Bloomberg Terminal's AV Function.
You can just copy paste the link on Bloomberg command line and view the
video by hitting Enter.
ŸCFA Institute Research Challenge in India Part 1:{NSN LXCHWX1A1I4H
<go>}
ŸCFA Institute Research Challenge in India Part 2: {NSN LXCI5O1A1I4I <go>}
ŸPanel on Investment outlook for India Equities: {NSN LWAZXY1A1I4I <go>}
The story is also searchable on AV or using NI VOD and through our many news
searches. The Key words for the story would be IAIP Challenge, IAIP, CFA, India,
IAIPIRC, Alan Meder, Ratnesh Kumar, Sunil Singhania, Ramesh Damani etc.
Welcome Ceremony For New Professionals December 14th, 2011
CFA Charter, considered the Global Passport andGold Standard by the investment fraternity
worldwide, is earned after putting in considerable
time and effort. So on becoming one it's the sight
to watch out for – there are lot of joys and smiles
on the faces. To celebrate their key milestone CFA
Institute and IAIP organized welcoming
ceremony for the new investment & finance
professionals on December 14th 2011 at Mumbai.
Rohit Rebello, CFA, Secretary IAIP, moderated
the entire events, tirelessly inviting more than 150
professionals to the stage and keeping the interest
alive till the end. Sunil Singhania, CFA President
IAIP welcomed professionals to the elite group of
charter holders and highlighted the benefits of
getting the CFA Charter and becoming the members of both CFA Institute and IAIP
(the India society). On this occasion we had Alan Meder, CFA, Vice Chair of the
CFA Institute Board of Governors and Ashvin Vibhakar, CFA, Managing Director,
Asia-Pacific Operations, CFA Institute. Alan emphasized on the ethical dimension
to bring back the trust of the clients and how the CFA Institute has been a voice of
integrity. Ashvin gave the glimpse of how the Body of Knowledge is written by the
practicing professionals & academicians.
There are few important steps which needs to be completed before getting the CFAcharter and becoming a member like getting sponsors, meeting the minimum work
experience to receive regular membership or else receive affiliate membership, and
so on.
1For the complete information on applying for membership kindly
2and for membership application process . So we urge you to complete
this important task. In case of any difficulties you could get in touch with any one of
the active volunteers and existing members.
The benefits of getting the Charter and becoming the member of both the CFA
Institute and IAIP are multifold. Primary being opportunities to network, to shareand gain knowledge & best practices, contribute to the profession and society at
large. IAIP has been regularly being conducting speaker events with both local and
global experts enlightening the members, organizing regular annual events like
research challenge, forecast survey and event, India Investment Management
Conference etc. So once again welcome to the growing group of professionals!
We are open to a few additions to each of these committees as well as the formation
of additional committees to enhance member value. Please come forward and be an
active part of the society volunteers. In addition to the opportunity to interact withmembers and the investment community, it is also a good platform for developing
leadership and keeping in touch with latest developments in the CFA community
and the financial industry. It is also an excellent forum for giving back to the
profession. Please email:
or with the committee you
are interested in participating in and your contacts.