Intuition. Perception. Perfection.

     In the 20 th century, the Indian automobile industry was a different place. The market was barely nascent then and a handful of companies co-existed and fought over the low volumes of car sales that each passing year witnessed. Fiat and Hindustan Motors ruled the roads for several decades and in 1983, Maruti muscled its way into the market. However, prior to the Maruti Suzuki era, Fiat reigned supreme over the Indian roads, not entirely unlike the way in which the Mafia ruled Italy. The Italian company, which had forayed into India through a joint venture with Premier Automobiles (PAL), first made its mark in the Mumbai taxi market. And then there was no looking in the rear view mirror. The fact that Fiat was an Italian brand soon ensured that the Premier Padmini became the car of choice and it went head-to-head with the Ambassador, from the stables of Hindustan Motors. Fiat was a force to reckon with and it even gave Maruti a drive for its money in the 1980s...

     For over four thousand years, it served as a symbol of power, glory, greatness, grandeur and status. Civilizations and empires lusted after it, even as it ignited wars and destroyed cities. It embellished the walls of palaces and tombs alike and its lustre drew men towards it like moths to a candle flame. Over the last century, gold has been hailed as the asset class of the highest echelon. Corporate prophets even went as far as calling it the ultimate bubble. Alas, no longer.      In 2013, that dream run came to a resounding end. Gold, which has rivalled equities over the past 3 decades as the best-performing asset class, plunged close to 30%, wiping out the gains that it had notched up in the past 2 years. The global crash of gold prices was eerily similar to the fate that silver suffered in the 1980s, following the devious trades of the Hunt brothers, who tried to corner and monopolize the silver market. Ever since the US went off ...

     If there’s one business sector in today’s corporate world that is known to be a capital-intensive, low-profit and high-risk one, then that sector, without a shadow of a doubt, is civil aviation. The aviation business is by far the only business in the world in which over half of the entrants have already gone out of business. This boils down to the startling fact that the total number of airlines flying today is less than 50% of the total number of airlines that took to the skies in the past. Capital is something that needs to be perennially pumped into an airline, in order to keep its planes in the air and globally, the airline business has the notorious reputation of being a cash-guzzler, one with wafer-thin profit margins.      India, of course, is no exception. In fact, the business environment for an Indian airline is far less conducive, with high ATF prices, exorbitant landing charges, crippling sales taxes, debilitating price wars ...