Swarup Mohanty spent 15 years building what he thought was a solid retirement plan. Then he asked an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to stress-test it. He realized there were gaps.
The vice-chairman and chief executive officer of Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), who manages one of the country's largest mutual fund houses, discovered through AI-driven simulations that his assumed 6% annual withdrawal rate from his retirement corpus could quietly erode his principal if equity markets stayed flat for just three consecutive years.
The math showed that in a range-bound market, withdrawals wouldn't be funded by returns—they'd start eating into the corpus itself.
"Even after spending 15 years planning retirement, the AI pointed out mathematical flaws I had overlooked. That was a fascinating learning," said Mohanty, 55, who has since cut his withdrawal assumption to 4%, stepped up monthly contributions, and has built a separate three-year withdrawal buffer to avoid redeeming long-term investments during weak markets.
The paranoid planner
Mohanty describes himself as "paranoid" about retirement. Longevity risk — the possibility of outliving one's money—sits at the centre of his thinking.
"People are going to live longer. Most people plan for life till 80 post-retirement. If they start to live beyond that and there is no planning for that, it can start to really pinch," he said. "Besides this, if I have worked so hard during my working life, I should have a better life in my retirement."
His target is a corpus large enough to sustain inflation-adjusted lifestyle expenses in his post-retirement life. He says he has already crossed his original minimum target but has since revised it upwards, using the final accumulation years to push as close as possible to the new figure.
The allocation grid
Mohanty's portfolio has migrated from a 60:40 equity-debt structure five years ago to a current 70:15:15 split—70% equity, 15% debt (including provident fund) and 15% alternates. It is this simple allocation framework, he says, that has made it easier to navigate the sharp volatility that has impacted markets recently, including turbulence triggered by the West Asia conflict.
"I focus almost entirely on asset allocation rather than market movements," he said. The rule is mechanical: if equity corrects 10%, his next investment goes higher into equity to restore that balance; if markets rally and equity becomes overweight, fresh allocations shift toward debt or alternates. "The market itself tells you where incremental money should go," he explained.
Mohanty says the framework was truly stress-tested during covid. While he could not deploy capital at the exact bottom of the crash, he managed to invest aggressively after markets had corrected 30–35%, which materially changed the long-term trajectory of his portfolio returns.
Over the last one year, portfolio returns were in the lower double digits—around 11.5–12%—driven largely by mid-cap and small-cap exposure and a timely position in silver. Over a five-year horizon, annualised returns have remained around 13.5–14%, ahead of his target return of 11–12%.
His equity book is roughly 75% active and 25% passive. Within active funds, large-caps account for about 40% of his equity allocation, small-caps for 10–15%, with the balance split between mid-cap and thematic funds covering healthcare, banking, defence, chemicals and capital market themes.
Passive with purpose
A quarter of Mohanty's equity allocation is through passive funds—but this is not vanilla index investing. He uses ETFs to gain targeted exposure to the above-mentioned themes.
About 80–85% of his mutual fund portfolio is in Mirae Asset schemes—a natural outcome of mandatory 'skin in the game' requirements. For external allocations, he looks for style diversification rather than just category diversification.
He says his investment view has also evolved to look at broader markets. "The Nifty 500 captures the breadth of India's growth story much better than the Nifty 50. If you are not invested across the other 450 companies in a meaningful way, you risk missing a large part of that opportunity," Mohanty said. Over the last two years, that conviction has translated into a gradual increase in mid- and small-cap allocations.
The alternate portfolio
Mohanty's 15% alternate allocation is split between art, silver ETFs, and some investments in few start-ups.
Mohanty’s wife manages their art portfolio entirely — researching artists, tracking gallery prices and maintaining a running wishlist. "She does all the research on the artists and art types that we should add to our portfolio. By now, she has created a wishlist and we add to our collection as and when there is an opportunity," Mohanty said. "Once you get into that circuit and you know the good galleries in the country, there is a broad consensus on the prices of each painter. Admittedly, it is not a very liquid market, but I am also not buying to sell in the near future."
The call on silver, which was made early on a colleague's advice, contributed meaningfully to Mohanty’s recent portfolio returns. Gold and silver exposures are through exchange traded funds (ETFs). The gold exposure is in his wife’s investment portfolio. He caps alternates at 15% of his portfolio.
International investing
One gap Mohanty acknowledges is insufficient global exposure. He began investing internationally through overseas funds early, but regulatory restrictions on outflows from Indian mutual funds into foreign assets stalled fresh allocations.
He is now rebuilding that leg of the portfolio through the GIFT City outbound route. His motivation, he clarifies, is not just rupee depreciation hedging—it's about owning businesses that India simply doesn't have yet. "India is still only about 3–3.5% of global market capitalisation. Not owning large global businesses itself becomes a risk," he said. Real estate investment trusts (Reits) is another space where he plans to build some exposure through multi-asset funds.
Insurance
Mohanty's approach to insurance was shaped by personal experience. "I have seen ₹25 lakh of my savings just going for my father's medical expenditure. After this, I have tried to take as much medical insurance as I can for my family," he said.
Today, he maintains ₹3 crore in health cover for himself and his wife, and ₹75 lakh for his son—a total family health cover of ₹3.75 crore. Even if he scales back in retirement, he says the floor will never go below ₹2 crore.
On life insurance, his logic is simple: it should cover liabilities. With a home loan of approximately ₹3 crore, he holds term insurance of around ₹12 crore (includes sizeable officer cover). He plans to let the cover lapse after retirement, reasoning that by then the home loan is likely to be settled and his retirement kitty large enough to take care of any exigencies on its own.
Takeaways
The 4% withdrawal rule Mohanty now uses is grounded in sequence-of-returns risk. Building a three-year cash or liquid fund buffer before retirement—so that a bad market doesn't force you to redeem equities at the worst time—is something any investor approaching retirement should consider. His insistence on style diversification over category diversification is a useful corrective for those who hold five large-cap funds, thinking they are diversified. And his approach to insurance—generous health cover, life cover tied to liabilities—offers a cleaner framework. As he put it: plan for a longer life, insure for a worse one, and let the asset allocation do the rest.