Sectors that see divestment will be more attractive going forward: Anish Damania, IDFC Sec

In a chat with ET Now, Anish Damania, Head-Institutional Equities, IDFC Securities, talks about the market with the coming Budget as the backdrop.

ET Now: From a sectoral point of view, what would you bet big on keeping the budget in mind? Do you think there is going to be any sector-impacting news, because a lot has already come in, such as the extension of duty cuts on autos till December?

Anish Damania: This budget is going to drive the roadmap for the next five years. I would really like to see how the budget pans out. I want to see what the Budget does about investment expenditure. It may go about it by raising tax revenue or cutting wasteful expenditure, and allocating the amount towards investment.

I also want to see what the budget does about fiscal deficits and how it proposes to prime the economy.

These are the various steps that I am looking at. I am not comfortable with the scenario where the government will expect a higher revenue growth than the 10-11% out of the taxes. It is not going to be that easy to increase tax revenues as much as expected. So I also want to see the divestment targets of this government. I want them to be very aggressive because there is liquidity. They need to harness this global liquidity in their favour.

Last year, it was about Rs 276 billion. I am expecting that this year they will target close to Rs 700 billion or so in terms of divestments. I want to see those kind of numbers in the Budget. I think the areas where divestment happens are going to be the ones that will become more attractive.