Uday Garg on Global Law and Business Podcast: Episode #34
Hear Mandala Capital CEO and Managing Partner Uday Garg, with Fred Rocafort and Jonathan Bench.
In this episode:
01:21 Introducing Uday
Jonathan introduces Uday, who developed Mandala Capital’s strategy, raised the current funds under management, and manages relationships with the firm’s partners and stockholders.
02:26 Breaking down the food and agriculture investment food chain
Whether it is the upstream, midstream, or downstream, value chains differ across products and geographies. Hear about how vastly different the dairy industries in the US and India are!
06:33 Why invest in India and SEA
Uday shares about Mandala’s passion for the region, which is home to a young population with rising GDP per capita, and a huge and growing middle class. Supply-side factors like poor infrastructure, slow technology adoption and a fragmented agricultural space lacking established market leaders make for an exciting space to be in.
10:30 Family business
With roots that originate from Uday’s grandfather’s seed company, Mandala Capital has an understanding of family businesses and how they work.
12:19 Mandala Capital’s playbook
Mandala’s Approach to deal creation involves spending a lot of time with companies to understand their motivations and build relationships. Quasi equity is used in deal structuring – a debt-like feature that potentially safeguards from the volatility that agriculture is predisposed to.
Read More: Mandala’s Approach
18:19 Agritech investing for productivity and efficiency
New money comes in primarily to increase productivity – through improving yield – and efficiency – by reducing costs. A prime example of this is the sugarcane business Mandala has invested in, which converts leftover fibre, from fuel production, to ethanol and other specialty chemicals.
News and Views: Indian Renewables and the Circular Economy Paradigm
Research Highlight: How Technology is Driving Change in Agriculture
29:17 Mandala’s approach to impact investing
Uday talks about Mandala’s approach to finding the sweet spot where commercial return and sustainable impact collide: it all boils down to finding businesses with good business models and unit economics.
Social Return on Investment (SROI) is the metric of choice for Mandala, which uses proprietary formulas to measure the wider impact from investments.
Available for Download: Mandala’s Annual Impact Reports
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