Drawing inspiration from Cafemutual’s article on Amravati-based Mahesh Gattani, of Balaji Investments, who initiated 500 SIPs in a single day, another IFA from Bengaluru, Sudhendra Lakshmana Rao, of INPRISM Services India, initiated 262 SIPs on behalf of his clients today.
“After reading the article, I started thinking about ways to do something similar. Since we do everything online, it gave us an opportunity to initiate multiple SIPs in a single day,” he said.
Sudhendra, who has been an IFA since 2007, started the exercise for this SIP marathon on the Union Budget day—Friday, February 1—when investors were talking about the impact of LTCG on their equity funds. Since many investors are curious to know the impact of the Budget on their investments, it is also the best time for advisors to make them understand their investments better, he said.
When asked whether investors were sceptical due to the reintroduction of long-term capital gains tax on equity, he said that 5-6% investors hesitated. However, he explained to them that this would only be applicable if the gains are more than Rs.1 lakh. He told them that they should instead focus on financial goals and start a few more SIPs to reduce the impact of taxation.
Coming back to the SIP marathon, Sudhendra set a target of 250 SIPs. His team of five helped him in the process.
To start with, he went through the list of existing clients to shortlist them for this SIP marathon. He set aside three hours a day to approach clients and prospects through phone calls and meetings. “Of the 100 plus clients we spoke to, 66 existing clients and 9 new clients agreed to start SIPs. Barring a few, we did not have to follow up with them more than once. On an average, these clients started three SIPs with a ticket size of Rs.2,200 per month per folio,” Sudhendra said.
Not all among these were equity SIPs. Seven per cent SIPs were in debt and money market funds.
Sudhendra decided to hold the SIP marathon on February 12, 2018 to take advantage of the long weekend. He told Cafemutual that in order to chase his dream, he has barely managed a few hours of sleep over the past three days.
Sudhendra has used NSE NMF II platform to execute the 262 SIPs.
