Long Horizons. Rational Decisions.
About
Imperial Investments
Imperial Investments is a diversified holding company that allocates capital across public equities, private equity, real estate, and operating businesses. We are driven by a simple principle: the pursuit of long-term value creation through disciplined capital allocation and patient ownership.
Our Business
We operate with a concentrated focus on acquiring and holding high-quality assets at reasonable prices. Our portfolio encompasses four primary areas:
Public Equities
We invest in businesses we understand, run by people we trust, with economics we find attractive. We are not traders. We are owners. When we buy stock in a company, we approach the transaction as if we were acquiring the entire business. We want to be in partnership with enterprises that have durable competitive advantages, strong returns on capital, and management teams that think like owners.
Private Equity
Our private equity practice focuses on acquiring controlling stakes in established, profitable businesses that are often overlooked by larger institutional funds. We are not interested in financial engineering, aggressive leverage, or quick flips. Unlike traditional private equity firms that operate on fixed fund cycles, we have permanent capital and no pressure to exit investments on arbitrary timelines. This allows us to be genuine partners with management teams, supporting operational improvements and strategic initiatives that may take years to bear fruit. We are comfortable holding these businesses indefinitely if they continue to generate attractive returns on invested capital.
Our real estate holdings span commercial properties, residential developments, and land banking. We prefer assets in growing metropolitan areas with favorable demographic trends. We are not interested in speculative flips or highly leveraged transactions. Instead, we seek properties that generate steady income streams and have the potential for value appreciation over measured time horizons. Quality of location and quality of tenants matter far more to us than chasing yield.
Real Estate
Operating Businesses
We acquire and hold operating companies that we believe can compound value over time. We prefer businesses with simple models, predictable cash flows, and limited capital intensity. Once acquired, we give management autonomy to run their operations while maintaining oversight on capital allocation decisions.
Our Philosophy
We believe the stock market is a mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient. This belief shapes everything we do—whether we're buying public stocks, acquiring private companies, or investing in real estate. We do not make investment decisions based on quarterly earnings, market sentiment, or macroeconomic forecasts. We make them based on the fundamental economics of the businesses and assets we study.
We think about risk differently than most. To us, risk is not volatility or beta—it is the permanent loss of capital. A stock that declines 30% is not necessarily riskier than one that remains flat; in fact, if the underlying business is sound, the decline may present opportunity. What concerns us is overpaying for assets, investing in businesses we don't understand, or partnering with management teams whose interests are not aligned with ours.
We are comfortable being different. We will hold cash when we cannot find attractive opportunities, even if it means underperforming during bull markets. We will concentrate our holdings when we have high conviction, even if it means higher volatility than a diversified index. We will think in decades when others are thinking in quarters.
Capital Allocation
The test of any investment organization is how effectively it allocates capital over time. We have no obligation to deploy capital simply because we have it. Cash is not a drag on returns—it is optionality. It allows us to act decisively when opportunities arise, particularly during periods of market dislocation when others are forced sellers.
When we do deploy capital, we measure ourselves against a simple standard: will this allocation generate returns superior to what shareholders could achieve on their own? If we cannot answer yes with confidence, we return capital to shareholders through dividends or repurchases.
We are also mindful of the compounding power of retained earnings. Businesses that can reinvest their profits at high rates of return are worth far more than those that cannot. We seek to own enterprises that can productively employ increasing amounts of capital at attractive incremental returns.
Our Approach to Private Equity
Our private equity strategy diverges significantly from the traditional leveraged buyout model that has come to define the industry. We are not financial engineers. We do not believe that value creation comes primarily from multiple arbitrage, cost cutting, or balance sheet restructuring. While we will employ debt judiciously when it makes sense, we structure our transactions to ensure businesses can withstand economic downturns without existential threat.
We target three types of private company investments:
Founder Transitions
We partner with founders who have built successful businesses but are ready to transition to the next chapter of their lives. Many of these entrepreneurs have poured decades into their companies and want to ensure their legacy continues. We offer them certainty of close, continuity for their employees and customers, and often a role in ongoing operations if they desire it. We are not interested in stripping out the founder's knowledge and flipping the business—we want to preserve what made it successful in the first place.
Family Business Succession
We work with family-owned businesses facing generational transition challenges. Perhaps the next generation has pursued different careers, or perhaps the family wants to monetize their life's work while ensuring the business continues to serve its stakeholders well. We provide liquidity while maintaining the culture and values that made these businesses enduring.
We acquire non-core divisions from larger corporations and businesses that don't fit neatly into institutional private equity mandates—perhaps they're too small, growing too slowly, or operating in "unsexy" industries. We find value where others see complexity or inconvenience.
Carve-Outs and Orphaned Divisions
What unites these opportunities is our ability to move decisively, our reputation for fair dealing, and our permanent capital base. We have completed transactions in as little as 30 days when circumstances required it, and we have walked away from deals where the economics didn't make sense, even after months of work.
Once we acquire a business, our approach is straightforward: we work with management to identify opportunities for improvement, we invest in capabilities that strengthen competitive position, and we exercise patience as value compounds. We do not impose arbitrary cost reduction targets or force-feed acquisitions to chase growth. We believe good businesses run by capable people will find organic growth opportunities if given the resources and strategic support they need.
Our Approach to Real Estate
Real estate represents a substantial portion of our portfolio, and our approach here mirrors our equity philosophy. We are buyers and holders, not developers and flippers. We believe location and quality are the primary drivers of long-term real estate value, and we are willing to pay up for these attributes.
We target properties in markets with growing populations, strong job growth, and limited supply constraints. We prefer assets with diverse tenant bases and long-term lease structures. We avoid highly leveraged transactions, typically employing debt conservatively to enhance returns rather than to maximize transaction size.
In residential real estate, we focus on areas where homeownership remains accessible to median-income families—we believe these markets offer the best combination of steady demand and price appreciation potential. In commercial real estate, we favor essential retail, industrial logistics, and medical office properties over office towers in transitioning urban cores.
What We Look For
Whether evaluating a public stock, a private company, or a real estate asset, we apply consistent criteria:
Capital Efficiency
We favor businesses that generate strong free cash flow relative to the capital required to run them. Asset-heavy, low-return businesses rarely make good long-term investments regardless of valuation.
Management Quality
In public equities, we assess management's capital allocation track record and alignment with shareholders. In private equity, we evaluate whether incumbent management teams have the capability and desire to continue leading the business, or whether we need to recruit new leadership.
Economic Moats
We want businesses with sustainable competitive advantages—brands, network effects, switching costs, or cost advantages that protect margins and market position over time.
Understandable Business Models
We pass on opportunities that require us to make heroic assumptions about technology shifts, regulatory changes, or consumer behavior. We prefer businesses whose success or failure we can reasonably forecast based on durable competitive dynamics.
Reasonable Valuations
We are value investors, but we define value as the relationship between price and long-term business economics, not simply low multiples. We will pay substantial premiums for truly exceptional businesses, and we will pass on apparently cheap assets that face structural headwinds.
Management and Governance
Imperial Investments is managed with the mindset of a family office, not an asset management firm. We have no external shareholders to whom we must explain quarterly results, no rigid investment mandates that force our hand, and no incentive structures that reward asset gathering over asset performance.
Our compensation is straightforward: we eat our own cooking. The principals of Imperial Investments have the substantial majority of their personal net worth invested alongside our partners. We are compensated based on long-term results, not assets under management or short-term performance metrics.
We maintain a small team of experienced investment professionals who share our philosophy and temperament. We would rather pass on opportunities than hire aggressively to chase more deals. Quality of thinking matters more than quantity of analysis.
Our team includes professionals with operating experience in the industries where we invest. When we acquire private companies, we can provide genuine strategic and operational support, not just financial oversight. We have helped portfolio companies implement better financial controls, recruit key executives, enter new markets, and navigate industry disruptions. But we are careful not to meddle—we intervene when we can add value, and we defer when management knows better.
Our Track Record
We measure our performance over rolling five-year periods, believing this timeframe is sufficient to assess whether our approach is working while filtering out short-term noise. We have compounded book value at rates that exceed public market benchmarks over the long term, though we have experienced periods of underperformance during momentum-driven bull markets.
Our private equity investments have generated returns that compare favorably to top-quartile institutional funds, but without the leverage, fees, and forced exit timelines that characterize traditional private equity. Several of our private company acquisitions from a decade ago now generate more in annual free cash flow than we paid for the entire business.
Our real estate portfolio has weathered multiple cycles, including the financial crisis, with positive returns in every rolling five-year period. We have never faced a forced sale due to over-leverage, and our occupancy rates have consistently exceeded market averages.
Looking Forward
The investment landscape has changed dramatically over the decades—algorithmic trading, passive indexation, and instant information flow have altered market dynamics in profound ways. Private equity has become institutionalized, with mega-funds competing for the same assets and paying prices that often assume perfection. Real estate has seen waves of capital from foreign buyers, REITs, and institutional investors.
Yet the fundamentals of sound investing remain unchanged: buy good assets at fair prices, think long-term, and maintain financial flexibility.
We expect to continue doing what we have always done: studying businesses, evaluating real estate, partnering with capable entrepreneurs, and allocating capital in a manner we believe will compound wealth over time. We will make mistakes—we always do. But we will learn from them, remain disciplined in our approach, and keep our focus on what matters: the long-term economic performance of the assets we own.
We are grateful for the trust placed in us and recognize that this trust must be earned through results, transparency, and integrity. We invite you to examine our track record, understand our philosophy, and determine whether our approach aligns with your own investment time horizon and temperament.
The road ahead will have its share of bumps—recessions, market corrections, unexpected events. But good businesses run by good people tend to navigate these obstacles and emerge stronger. Real assets owned with reasonable leverage weather storms that sink the over-levered. Patient capital finds opportunities that rushed capital misses.
That is what we bet on. That is what we look for. And that is what we believe will drive our results in the years ahead.
Get in touch
Address
603-A, Prathamesh Tower, Raghuwanshi mills compound, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel West Mumbai 400013