Wealth Forum had a colloquium yesterday (actually it is on 7th Jan and 8th Jan) and I was pleasantly surprised to be invited. Thanks Vijay Venkatram.

It was a nice format which focused on certain important learning for many IFA. The IFA was also selected on a particular basis – size of aum, growth, etc. So about 275 IFA from all over the country were present.

First of all for most of us it is a great place to interact with many people whom you wish to meet, but do not have a one-hour agenda! So thanks for that too Vijay. In a city of distances it is a great net-working opportunity. Of course it was nice meeting you too, but I guess we need to meet for a longer time and with a more focused agenda. I am sure it will happen soon.

KS Rao was a good choice to moderate what 3 IFA were talking about Customer segmentation and Customer Acquisition Strategies. Amazingly ‘customer segmentation’ is something about which I have been talking for a long time. The example I give is a footpath selling tea for Rs. 15 and a 5* hotel serving tea selling it for Rs. 1500. Clearly both have a different target clientele. Two of the IFA were focused on the big investor and the third concentrated on NRI. All the 3 of them brought their core – “focus”. However, later in the day we met one IFA – who had a big aum and no focus on who should be his client. Proves time and again that some strategies work and there are some successful people who do not have a strategy. Well he does things differently, that is all!!!

Naren came and spoke about ‘Greed’ and ‘Fear’ – what I actually learnt from Naren is ‘sizing’. I also do not run a fund, so for me  the “theme for 2020” does not sound very interesting. In fact in my own portfolio I have across market capitalisation, across industries etc. and shares like Sun Pharma or Asian paints is held across cycles. So I may add more Biocon now (as I did a few months ago)…but I am not excited by a ’10 year fund’ – even if it is a close ended fund. So BAAF is a great concept, but not one which I have personally used. I stick to my own “Equity always and always in equity” theory. However it is always a pleasure to hear Naren…and parts of the CFA Delhi speech was visible hear. I still think the Delhi talk – which was 90 minutes was super. Go and find it on Youtube.

Again there were 3 IFA (I do not know the IFAs well enough, so I am not using their names). AP and HR are of course well known but Sadashiv Phene is a very understated kind of an IFA who again has completely different strategy as compared to the other two.

Some Ifa approach the practice as a profession, and some as a business. Sadashiv is the first category, and what I would call a dying breed!

The CEO panel was good…and I must thank Vijay for bringing up the ‘Retirement’ topic. Well it is a pet peeve that the CEOs of the industry are too young and hence they are not too concerned about the Retirement piece! Of course a couple of CEOs seem to be serious, but hey, I need to see it in the action. It is fairly obvious that CEO stories about “abhi mid cap chalega” and “abhi credit fund chalega” stories are lapped up by IFA all over the country. I do not see very passionate “agle 40 saal yeh fund chalega” kind of talk by  CEO – even during an NFO. Of course I expect to see some change over the next few months.

VV asked will we see the Retirement fund size (for the industry)..move from Rs. 9000 crores to Rs. 100,000 crores?

I am sure VV in our life time we will see it grow from 9000 to Rs. 90,000 crore to Rs. 900,000 crore – the question is

a) which amc really wants it?

b) which sales channel will put in the effort to do this….

If the MF industry is not willing, the life insurance industry, NPS, …and others will happily take the MF industry’s share.

This is not the “Minutes” of what happened yesterday…just some of my observations.