Fund managers at India’s largest private sector life insurer, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, are turning their attention to the technology and pharmaceutical sectors following bumper payoffs from a contrarian bet on the country’s telecommunications sector.
ICICI Pru Life’s chief investment officer, Manish Kumar, said he kept buying telecoms shares this year even as a bruising price war and plunging profits forced several other investors to cut their exposure to the sector.
Kumar’s investment was unorthodox as insurers’ exposure limits give them little elbow room to experiment with significant changes in asset allocation, which means their shifts in positioning are generally very modest.
“I don’t think we have taken as strong a contrarian bet in any of the sectors,” Kumar told Reuters.
