Quant Money Managers

About

Quant Money Managers (QMM) was incorporated in December 1995. It was approved to act as an asset management company in October, 2017. Its parent company is Quant Capital Finance & Investments Pvt. Limited.

According to a fact sheet published by the firm, its AUM as of March 31, 2023 is INR 20,104 crores (~ USD 2.53 billion, conversion rate of $1 to INR 80). 

QMM offers a diverse set of investment products across asset classes. They focus on combining technology and research to thrive in diverse market conditions.

Key figures from the financial statements for FY 2021-22 

Year	Total Income (INR crore)	Total Expenses (INR crore)	EBIT (INR crore)	EBIT (%)	Net Profit (INR crore)	Total Income ( (USD millions)	Total Expenses (USD millions)	Net Profit (USD millions)
2021-22	20.99	8.64	12.35	58.84%	12.35	2.62375	1.08	1.54375

Key staff

Sandeep Tandon, Founder & Chief Executive Officer – is the founder of the quant group and has 23 years of experience in the financial services industry. He began his career as a trainee at GIC Mutual Fund and later joined IDBI Asset Management as a founding member. He has also held positions at financial services firms such as ICICI Securities, Kotak Securities and REFCO. 

Surendra. S. Yadav, Chief Business Officer – Wealth & Management Investors – has over two decades of experience in sales and business development. His last assignment was with Sundaram Asset Management where he was working as senior vice president and national head sales; responsible for managing sales and distributors across various segments including MFDs, national distributors, and banks.

Investment philosophy

The following has been taken from the firm website and from the MMI interview below – 

Active – In a dynamic world which is continuously changing due to technology and increasingly volatile geopolitics, they believe that passive investment strategies can no longer outperform. Alpha belongs to active strategies which can invest in sync with the dynamics at play. Being relevant comes by staying active

Absolute – they believe consistent outperformance requires complete freedom from looking at the world relatively. It is why they design investment strategies with an absolute objective irrespective of market conditions. With this absolute objective, comes clarity of thought. Being relevant requires an absolute focus on returns.

Unconstrained – Embedded within our processes and systems is the conviction that the surest way to success in investing is through cultivation of a multitude of opinions and perspectives. By bringing together this diversity of ideas within our investment framework, we aim to unearth every possible opportunity in any set of circumstances.
Being relevant means having an unconstrained perspective.

Media

We are in a structural bull run, says Sandeep Tandon, CIO, Quant Mutual Fund October, 2022 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/mf/analysis/we-are-in-a-structural-bull-run-says-sandeep-tandon-cio-quant-mutual-fund/articleshow/94673448.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Sandeep Tandon believes that their primary focus is on risk management rather than solely pursuing high returns. They follow a dynamic style of money management across all their schemes and attribute the outperformance of their schemes to their risk mitigation-driven investment framework called “VLRT” and the use of predictive analytics. Quant’s dynamic style of money management allows them to be agile and flexible in rebalancing and reconstructing their portfolio to adapt to the changing global markets.

Quant Mutual Fund adopts a multi-dimensional approach to investing, considering qualitative, quantitative, and behavioral factors. They follow the “multi asset, multi managers” concept derived from their investment framework called “VLRT,” which combines valuation analytics, liquidity analytics, risk appetite analytics, and time.

(Source- QMM website)

MMI interview, August 2022

Summary – Sandeep Tandon mentions 3 underlying core beliefs – Atma (fundamentals), Praan (liquidity), Maya (sentiments). 

That is, they focus on a combination of qualitative, quantitative and behavioural research which means capturing the sentiments of the market. 

Talking about investment philosophy, he mentions the ‘VLRT framework – 1/3 on valuation analysis (V), 1/3 on global liquidity (L) and 1/3 on risk or sentiments (R). Where 2/3 of weightage is on the macro aspect and 1/3 on valuation which in turn helps in de-risking the price derivative data and metrics time (T)’ (sic)

He talks about how the company focuses on predictive analysis to counter the various price volatility risks, that the very strength of the company is to quantify various analytics.

He mentions a  4-step ‘playbook’ – 

• Global macro environment, 
• Understanding of the flow of money, 
• Level of risk investors are willing to take and 
• VLRT methodology.

QMM follows an unconstrained process which means their sector agnostic stock selection, wide universe, unrestricted style, and quick changes in portfolio construction. The firm doesn’t believe in a buy-and-hold strategy; instead they believe in bopping and weaving out of companies and sectors from time to time. 

When asked about the firm’s USP, he reiterated depending on the combination of liquidity, risk appetite and valuation.

Marketing strategy – an asset-light model, so using electronic platform. Took two years to organize.

Why are schemes of Quant Mutual Fund topping the charts? ET Money, January 2022.

Summary – ET Money has attempted to explain the performance of Quant Mutual Fund’s equity funds, by repeating the firm’s VLRT process, as outlined in their website. The video doesn’t really explain the chart-topping performance.

Prepared by – Amit Soni, May 2022, MMI interview summary by Jigyasu Bhan Singh Aug 2022, updated by Aniket Ghoshal, December 2022 

 Updated by – Tanvi Gandhi, June 2023