BOOKMARK: 5 books that influenced Union AMC CEO G Pradeepkumar's life

This was one of the early books that I read after I started working and is still a great read. Michael Lewis, as a fresh graduate out of Princeton and LSE, working at Salomon Brothers, narrates in his characteristic humorous style, the life on the trading floors of a large investment bank. While it is entertaining at one level, it also gives a very good insight into the excitement, greed, ambition and ruthlessness of life in the world of high finance.

This is a must-read book for anyone hoping to achieve financial independence. People make investment decisions based more on their personality, behavioral traits, and the circumstances under which they grew up than on excel sheets. The concepts such as saving just for the sake of saving and that you gain much more by keeping your expenses low than by trying to improve the returns on your investments by 0.50 percent appear so basic but surprisingly few people are able to execute them. This book simplifies the otherwise complex world of savings and investment for 99 out of 100 people on the planet in a most amazing way. I really wish had read this when I was 20 years old!

This is primarily a compilation of various speeches made by Dr Acharya during his time as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. It deals with issues such as resolving the NPA problem of banks, autonomy of the central bank, dual control of PSU banks, crowding-out effects of government financing, developing viable capital markets etc. He also talks about other issues such as monetary policy transmission and why it has not worked well in India. Dr Acharya’s outstanding conceptual understanding combined with his hands-on experience from his vantage position at RBI allows him to provide rare insights into these areas.

Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last, analyses what helps ordinary companies or good companies to achieve greatness. Some of the factors that he identified include Level 5 leaders and the Hedgehog concept (the idea of finding the one thing that you are passionate about, you are best at doing and also drives your economic engine). It is not that reading this book makes your company great. But it certainly gives you a very good understanding of how successful companies made the leap from being good to being great and opens up your vistas in a big way. Definitely a great read for CEOs and aspiring CEOs.

My fifth and final choice Is not a book but a short story that we had in our text book in one of the primary classes. It goes like this: One guy borrows a vessel from his neighbor for a function at his house. He returns it next day but gives a small vessel along with it saying that the vessel delivered a baby while in his possession and the baby vessel also belonged to the owner. The owner was naturally very happy though he thought that the neighbor must be a fool. A few days later, the neighbor again borrowed the vessel but this time, failed to return it even after many days. When the owner demanded his vessel back, he was told that the vessel, unfortunately, had died. The owner was angry and asked how could a vessel die. The reply was that “anything that delivers a baby could also die”.

This story taught me an important lesson while analysing funds or any other investment opportunity. Anything that looks too good to be true probably is.