Benchmarking 45 Financial Firms to Defend a Portfolio Position
Built a benchmarking framework using asset quality metrics to give the deal team a clear view on portfolio company performance versus peers.
Sauravjeet Singh
Operations Lead at Self-employed
From their time as
Research and Investment Analyst
TresVista • 2023 - 2025
Overview
Sauravjeet took on a benchmarking project at a point where Leapfrog's investment committee was concerned about a portfolio company's performance. The company looked weaker than expected, and the IC needed to understand whether the issue was company-specific or sector-wide.
The Story
Sauravjeet took on a benchmarking project at a point where Leapfrog's investment committee was concerned about a portfolio company's performance. The company looked weaker than expected, and the IC needed to understand whether the issue was company-specific or sector-wide.
He led a benchmarking study across 20 Indian small finance banks and MFIs, 10 housing finance companies, and 15 Vietnamese lenders. The decision that mattered was not collecting the data. It was choosing which metrics actually signaled credit quality versus noise.
He focused on asset quality, NIM evaluation, and capital adequacy ratios rather than headline growth, because in that sector, rapid growth often masks weakening credit. That lens surfaced several names that looked healthy on the surface but were deteriorating underneath.
The comparison reframed the picture. The portfolio company's fundamentals held up well against its peer group on the metrics that actually mattered. Sauravjeet presented the findings to the deal team, who used them to reassure LPs that the portfolio company remained strong relative to peers, despite the surface-level concern.