Investment and jugaad: How this Pune executive achieved financial independence at 46
Amit Upadhyaya, a Pune-based corporate executive, has achieved financial independence at age 46. Despite working for a French multinational (Dassault Systemes) for two decades, Upadhyaya does not credit his wealth to a high corporate salary or employee stock options. He sees it as the outcome of investing in the right stocks and funds and holding on to them.
Upadhyaya also followed a policy of buying the dip, which was maximized during the covid-19 pandemic. He withdrew ₹50 lakh from his SBI Maxgain home loan overdraft account and deployed it in the market in March and April 2020. The amount has tripled since then (3.6 times to be exact), which Upadhyaya credits for accelerating his financial independence journey.
The loan currently has an interest rare of 9.2% but was around 8% during the pandemic years. Since the interest was tax deductible, the net cost came to 5.6%.
“Two stocks have really acted as compounding machines in my portfolio and so have the small cap funds I bought over a decade ago," Upadhyay said.
“When TVS (Motor Co. Ltd) announced its interest in the racing circuit, I saw it as a truly serious bikemaker. This was before the launch of the TVS Apache RR. No other player was doing this at the time. I bought the stock in 2011 and kept adding in the next few years," he said. “I also bought HCL (Technologies Ltd) because I felt it would outperform the largecap IT stocks."
TVS was trading at about ₹50 per share in 2011. On 25 October, the shares ended trading at about ₹2,442 apiece. This translates to a compound annual growth rate of nearly 35%.
Upadhyay also invested in SBI Smallcap, HDFC Smallcap and PPFAS Flexicap. He estimates that overall his portfolio has compounded at 19-20% over the last decade.
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