Rajeev Thakkar
Rajeev Thakkar is the Chief Investment Officer and Director of PPFAS Asset Management Private Limited, the asset manager operating PPFAS Mutual Fund, established by the late Parag Parikh. He is the lead fund manager of Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, which has grown from a small, niche offering into one of India’s largest mutual funds by AUM, reflecting a sustained period of strong investor confidence in its approach. Thakkar is one of the most prominent advocates of a long-term, value-oriented investment philosophy in Indian asset management, incorporating both domestic Indian equities and global equity positions in a single open-ended flexi-cap structure, an approach that was unusual at the time of the fund’s launch and has since been recognised as innovative by the broader industry.
Early life and education
Rajeev Thakkar completed his undergraduate education in commerce and is a Chartered Accountant (CA). He also holds a CFA designation. He is based in Mumbai. Details of his schooling and personal early history are not discussed in public forums.
Career history
Early career and PPFAS association
Thakkar’s professional career has been primarily with the Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services group. He joined PPFAS in the 1990s when the organisation was operating as a Portfolio Management Service and investment advisory firm. His career development was deeply shaped by the intellectual environment of PPFAS under Parag Parikh, who was one of India’s most articulate advocates of behavioural finance and value investing principles.
PPFAS Mutual Fund (2013–present)
When PPFAS launched its mutual fund operations in 2013, converting from a PMS-only firm to an AMC, Thakkar became its CIO and the lead fund manager of the flagship Parag Parikh Long Term Equity Fund (subsequently renamed Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund following SEBI’s 2017 scheme categorisation circular). He has managed the scheme continuously since inception, providing one of the longer continuous single-scheme management tenures in Indian mutual fund history.
The fund launched with a distinctive structure: a flexi-cap Indian equity fund that also maintained a portion of the portfolio in global equities, primarily US-listed technology companies and other international businesses. The inclusion of overseas equity was unusual and controversial at the time, but proved to be highly additive to returns during periods when US technology companies outperformed Indian equities significantly.
The fund’s AUM grew from under Rs 500 crore in the first few years to over Rs 65,000 crore by the mid-2020s, a growth trajectory that reflects sustained inflows attracted by the fund’s long-term performance record. This growth placed significant attention on PPFAS AMC as a fund house, on Neil Parikh as its CEO, and on Thakkar as the investment architect.
Following SEBI’s 2022 decision to restrict overseas fund-of-fund subscriptions due to the industry breaching its collective overseas investment limit, Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund faced a challenge: new lump-sum investments in the overseas equity component were constrained, and the fund maintained its domestic equity allocation while the overseas positions were restricted from new additions. This episode tested Thakkar’s ability to manage the fund within regulatory constraints while maintaining the long-term philosophy.
Investment philosophy
Thakkar’s investment philosophy is among the most thoroughly documented in Indian asset management, articulated across annual reports, investor letters, media commentary, and the PPFAS investment education series:
Value orientation. Inspired by the work of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger, Thakkar seeks to acquire businesses at prices below their intrinsic value as estimated through rigorous fundamental analysis. He has been explicitly sceptical of momentum-driven and growth-at-any-price investing styles.
Global perspective. Thakkar has argued that the opportunity set of high-quality listed businesses is not limited to India and that a truly long-term investor should be willing to invest in the best global businesses when they offer better value than available Indian alternatives. The partial global equity allocation in Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund is a structural implementation of this philosophy.
Low portfolio turnover. PPFAS Mutual Fund publishes one of the lower portfolio turnover ratios among actively managed Indian equity funds, reflecting Thakkar’s conviction that genuine long-term investing requires avoiding the impulse to trade on short-term news, earnings surprises, or market movements.
Transparency and investor education. Thakkar and the PPFAS team are known for unusually detailed investor communications, including quarterly fund manager letters that explain portfolio decisions and market views in accessible language. This transparency has built a loyal investor following.
Alignment of interest. A notable characteristic of PPFAS AMC is that employees invest personal capital in the fund they manage, creating explicit alignment between fund manager and unit-holder interests. Thakkar has referenced this alignment in multiple public discussions as a governance feature that he considers important.
Public engagement
Thakkar is a regular media commentator in Mint, Economic Times, and BQ Prime. He participates in the PPFAS investor education programme, including the AMC’s annual general meetings (open to investors and widely covered in financial media), where he explains portfolio changes and investment rationale in detail. He has spoken at investment conferences and IIM events. He has been profiled in Outlook Business and other financial publications. He participates in AMFI’s investor education initiatives and is regarded as one of the more intellectually rigorous communicators in the Indian fund management community.
See also
References
- PPFAS Asset Management, official website and investor letters, 2013–2024.
- Mint, “Rajeev Thakkar and the PPFAS philosophy,” 2022.
- Economic Times, profile of Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, 2023.
- Outlook Business, “Why PPFAS became India’s most trusted small AMC,” 2021.
- BQ Prime, interview with Rajeev Thakkar on global equity and value investing, 2023.
- AMFI, scheme information document, Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund.
- Moneycontrol, fund performance analysis, PPFAS schemes.