Abakkus Asset Manager

Sunil Singhania, the founder and CIO, is the sole named portfolio manager and responsible for all investment decisions. His historical track record spans over two decades as the first employee and CIO of Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management, where he oversaw equity assets before launching Abakkus. Singhania is a CFA charterholder and former chair of the CFA Institute's global board of governors (per the CFA Institute, 2018).

Abakkus typically holds 20–30 stocks across its strategies, reflecting a high-conviction, benchmark-agnostic philosophy. The firm has publicly stated that it is willing to hold up to 20% in cash during periods of market overheating, as it did in February 2024 when small-cap valuations surged (per Bloomberg, February 2024). Cash is treated as an active defensive position, not a deviation from mandate.

It is a boutique investment manager. Unlike a traditional diversified asset management company, Abakkus operates as a single-CIO firm with a lean research team and a tightly focused domestic equity mandate. The structure is closer to a disclosed hedge fund or a concentrated managed account platform — three pooled strategies with no plans announced to expand into fixed income, international equities, or passive management.

Singhania has publicly articulated skepticism toward companies with high leverage, opaque corporate governance, and businesses dependent on government subsidies or unpredictable policy cycles. He has also publicly stated a preference for avoiding the information technology services giants in favor of domestic-facing sectors like financials, industrials, and consumer discretionary (per public record, multiple interviews 2019–2024).

Abakkus is exclusively a public-equities manager and does not invest in private or pre-IPO companies. Within public markets, the firm targets listed Indian companies across market caps — small, mid, and large — with a bias toward small- and mid-caps in its flagship fund. The strategy is long-only, with no publicly disclosed short-selling or derivative-overlay mandates.

There is no ownership or operational relationship between the two entities. Sunil Singhania was the founding Chief Investment Officer at Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management (previously Reliance Capital Asset Management) from 1994 to 2017. He left in 2017 and established Abakkus Asset Manager as an entirely new and independent entity in 2018. Reliance Nippon Life has no stake in Abakkus.

Like all registered portfolio managers in India, Abakkus discloses its holdings on a quarterly basis through SEBI-mandated regulatory filings for its Portfolio Management Services (PMS) and Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) vehicles. Holdings in listed equities above 1% of the company are also disclosed via Indian stock exchange bulk deal and shareholding pattern filings. These records indicate concentrated exposure — typically 3–5% position sizes.