Guest Lecture by Mr. Parimal Sheth

Over the years, Finance stream has been regaining the momentum among MBA aspirants. In SIMSREE itself, more than half the batch constitutes of Finance aspirants. The reasons can be attributed to many and is beyond the scope of this article. Within finance, Private Equity and Investment Banking are among the preferred career options. The SIMSREE students were in for a pleasant treat when Mr. Parimal Sheth, from J.R. Laddha Financial Services came down to the campus for a guest lecture on ‘Private Equity, Venture Capital and Investment Banking’. Mr. Sheth, a CA by qualification with over 25 years of experience in Investment Banking, is the Director-Investment Banking at J.R. Laddha.

Keeping with the SIMSREE tradition of maximum industry interaction and corporate connect; this was a very good opportunity for all the students to get an insight into the field of private equity and venture capital. To be very honest, such opportunities are very rare to come by. The batch expected Mr. Sheth to share his experiences in his area of expertise and he did not disappoint. He was kind and humble enough to oblige and kept the floor open for discussions and doubts. Mr. Sheth also shared insights on the recent closure of an M&A deal by JRL wherein a Japanese stationery giant acquired an Indian Notebook manufacturer. Post this; he started off the presentation with a brief description of the means of finance for a company: the traditional means. That set the floor to begin the lecture on venture capital and private equity. Many of the students have wrong notions or misconceptions and people in the audience were clueless about these terms. Mr. Sheth then gave the objectives of a venture capitalist. Venture capitalists take higher risks for higher returns and help growing companies to become stable. The guest then took the audience through the different stages of funding, right from idea generation to a large business. The stages of private equity are many from seed stage, start-up, expansion, mezzanine, buyout and so on.

Sir then told about the sectors that venture capitalists look for and shared some live examples like Flipkart, Zomato, Quikr, RedBus, Jabong etc. The questions started coming in from the audience. The students seized this opportunity and kept flooding the guest with questions and doubts. One hot topic of discussion was the deal between Facebook and Whatsapp. The batch was eager to learn more. There was a very good question that India lags far behind China in terms of venture capital and private equity. Mr. Sheth was quick to reply that though India lags behind, India is doing pretty well to its standards and the situation is getting better.

A very big confusion among youngsters was cleared: Difference between Private Equity and Venture Capital. Venture capital involves high risk but less amount of investment as it deals with early stage of investment, whereas private equity involves high investment as well as high risk as it comes in to picture during the expansion stage of a company. From there on, Mr. Sheth went on to explain the PE/VC investment process. He concluded his presentation by sharing the success stories in the VC/PE deals like JumboKing, Gowardhan and BIBA.

It is rare that students get to interact directly with someone who has made his career in investment banking. It was great to see the level of interaction between the audience and the guest; full marks go to Mr. Sheth for bringing in the comfort level due to which the students could ask as many questions as possible. The Q&A session ranged from process of venture capital, the ways to attract VC funding, JRL role in fund raising process to Tata Corus deal.

It would be appropriate to say that the batch was more enlightened about the way private equity works. It was perhaps one of the most insightful lectures by a corporate on campus. Sir was kind enough to share his contact details and invited students to ask any queries or doubts anytime.

At this early stage of students’ careers, it is very important to learn from the successful people of the industry to attain success. Mr. Sheth brought with him a high level of humility and expertise and inspired everyone to have the same. He had little to gain from the session, but he cancelled appointments to make it on time. SIMSREE appreciates his way of giving back to the society in the form of knowledge.

Finally, SIMSREE students thank Sir for taking out time from his busy schedule and coming down to campus. Everyone is looking forward to such an eventful lecture on campus again.