Subra’s Financial Planning Service!
Due to public demand I launched my Financial Planning service on 1st April, 2011 and the response was just fantastic!
The first client was a Vice President of the R Group (he told me that there are 3000 people like him, but I think he was exaggerating).
Client: Subra will you do F P for me?
S: Of course sir, my pleasure.
Client: Here is my portfolio and other details..which I had sent you…can we discuss your comments?
Subra: Hmmm most of the unit linked plans I have asked you to surrender, I have asked you to surrender your 4 credit cards and redeem 37 out of the 42 schemes in which you have invested.
Client: You want me to surrender all the children plan, make the endowment plans and pension plans fully paid up, – are you not increasing the risk?
Subra: No sir, I am simplifying your life. Actually reducing your risk.
Client: Oh, I see, that is good, I presume?
subra: well not sure…you are talking from your point of view, correct? Hmmm
Client: You have said all I need is ONE term life insurance, ONE index fund, ONE credit card and ONE savings account? OMG this is scary.
Subra: if you have come to me and believe I make ‘smart people richer’ please believe Leonardo da Vinci who said ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’.
Client: I still do not understand why you stopped me from investing Rs. 60 Lakhs in the nice Private Equity concept fund that XYZ123 had brought in the morning?
Subra: Look first of all stop calling yourself a rich man. That you were perhaps long ago…really long ago! On a liquid networth of Rs. 2.8 crores, you CANNOT AFFORD a Rs. 72 lakh ‘Private equity’ fund investment, so @#$%^& stay away.
Client: You have shaken my belief – and worse you said you will charge a fee too!
Subra: yes sir, the fees is Rs. 35,000 per annum.
Client: But you did not do anything!!
Subra: No sir. However the fees is simple – Rs. 1000 for the investing advice. Rs. 34000 for keeping you away from all of the other product sellers. …..
Subra: Sir there is also a theory….
Client: these are all products approved by the regulator like IRDA or SEBI…how can that be bad?
Subra: for questions like this please visit my blog www.subramoney.com and read ‘confusopoly’ a newly coined word mentioned by a few people. One is a cartoon and one is a cartoonist.
God bless you!
PS: Mr. R, a partner of a big Management consulting firm, who was also Subra’s friend and well wisher advised him to stick to blogging and writing. Truth and FP did not have too much of a connection.
SAM
Subra,
God! You are too funny and sarcastic at the same time! I think this can be attributed to lethal combo of rasam rice + fafda jalebi.
Anyways, my sympathies to you. Your clients seem to age you faster than stress does! 🙂
Ritu Kant
hahahhaha…hope financial planners read this 😉
Muthu
Choosing all fools day to launch financial planning services speaks for itself!
Good that you seems to have made up your mind for not being a financial planner.
Given the saturated market, you might have given us run for our money.
Still I’m not sure whether you would have been successful in your practice!
I don’t know whether you saw Kamal’s Tamil movie ‘Manmadhan Ambu’.
Madhavan would be suspicious of his fiancée Trisha and ask detective Kamal to probe her life.
Kamal would give him a report stating that she is a fine woman.
Madhavan would refuse to pay him on the ground what Kamal has told him s nothing new.
Kamal would say ‘Honesty is the ultimate luxury’ and would demand payment. Madhavan would say something like honesty has zero price.
When Madhavan continues to refuse paying, Kamal would start inventing cooked up stories, for which Madhavan would amply reward him.
May be this film is taken by Kamal keeping in mind financial planners!
Vidya
What do you say to a person who holds 97 stocks and cannot track them ??! 🙂 When I initially met this person I thought .. WOW ….. he really knows his stuff !!
Took a lot of learning ( and still learning ….. ) to realize that … it was not a good idea to have that many ! 🙂
srinivasan m
Subra,
Ultimate dig at your industry. I can’t see too many people say this “Truth and FP did not have too much of a connection.” To be honest, none of the Financial planners/Wealth Manager/RM’s I have seen(Mind you I’ve seen very few only) have acknowledged this truth. But you what, after reading blogs like yours some months back I told a banker like your managers are experts in lying when he was canvassing me for a ULIP and he didn’t reply a word for it. lol. The problem is these private bankers can see your balance and hence they persist in convincing you till the end you purchase their ULIP or got angry. I remeber a Branch operations manager pressurising me to take a ULIP and finally I gave in. Thankfully I read the Policy doc during the grace period itself and cancelled it promptly. It was a great espace though 🙂
subra
Over a 30 year investing life you need to buy, hold and understand a little about 50-60 stocks. This means you need to look at about 500-600 stocks. This is at the higher end for an investor.
If you advise people on stocks you end up seeing about 1,000 stocks. To buy 2 stocks a year, frankly you do not need too much of hard work. Some education in accountancy, law, philosophy, psychology, criminology help. However if you have studied anthropology, history, geography, science, sociology, mathematics it may not really matter too much.
Research is useful – knowing people is far, far, far more useful. Knowing that honest managements in this country (or anywhere else) is useful. Also being pig headed and biased helps – my anti Hyderabad and anti Delhi bias kept me out of Satyam, but I broke MY OWN BIAS for buying Dr. Reddy (luck man, luck). Anti Delhi helped me stay away from MS Shoes, but I lost the opportunity to make money in Ranbaxy. Hero Honda won because the merchant banker said ‘buy you jerk and hold’ and I adore him. Ha ha ha all that for research…but yes when I felt even a little nervous I sell – this is true across my holdings. It has helped me a lot.
anon
subrabhai,
past the laughter this post, as my late elder would say,is “a cut and keep”.
this once, the comments enlightening.
amdavad also is a wait and watch, the millowners managed to keep all their land money to themselved, and Guj Tel Cables is stringing cables in rarefied ether.
subra
Thanks SAM. Ritu I hope FPs DO NOT READ this. Agree with Muthu. Imagine paying Rs. 6500 for a medical test and not finding anything – at least some stone in the gall bladder if not some sexy thing like Cancer..waste of money. Why I even have term insurance and critical illness cover (I have told the insur co. that if they do not pay the claim, I will haunt them even from Hell).
Vidya if you are not healthy it will be visible to people. However if you have s….d your portfolio it is a well kept secret. Nobody other than ur CA will know.
Srini inspite of what you have said I am not sure people know the diff between good paid service and bad paid or unpaid service. We need a Ralph Nader here.
Funnily I know a person who claims to be doing very well in his PMS. He deals with a few people who appear on TV …I let the comment pass. One day I was sitting with a practicing CA – who happened to be this guy’s CA. He was asking me what can be done with LONG TERM CAP LOSS – set off is not attractive – then out came the details.
Anon the rich know how to keep their money to themselves. Fair enough it is basic survival techniques. If dividends and cap gains are taxed once again, I know how much I will scream. It slows down the compounding speed…
Naveen kumar
sir,
You have given good idea for me to tell client why do we charge?
thanks
Atul
Hi Subra,
Hope you dont get same type of customers daily. BTW I liked this comments “Rs. 1000 for the investing advice. Rs. 34000 for keeping you away from all of the other product sellers. …..”
I am sure customer has taken in positive stride.
Cheers
Atul
NPR
Best Wishes, Subra.
anon
The difference being, that when a GSK or Raymond sells land, the shareholders benefit