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Anooshka, could you take us through the landscape of wealthy women investors in India, and why you chose to launch a PMS specifically aimed at women?
The landscape is ever-growing, especially post-covid. With the economy expanding, the number of ultra-high net worth women is rising. Ultra HNI women tend to have a different approach compared to men – they're more passive with their investments, looking at longer time horizons and less driven by impulse.
Women can invest in any PMS. Why did you launch a women-centric PMS?
While women can invest in any PMS, they often don't feel comfortable with the setup of fund houses, which are more inclined towards men.
Our approach is more compassionate, empathetic and focused on building non-judgmental relationships. We offer a unique co-learning community building program where we teach women how the stock market works and how their money is growing.
How do you build relationships and show empathy to your clients?
We organize personality development workshops, confidence workshops, networking workshops and personal brand growth sessions. Many of our clients are women entrepreneurs and want to grow and learn. We aim to be a one-stop solution for their personal development and overall financial growth. We created a non-judgmental environment in our learning sessions and encouraged the culture of asking questions. Also, we have an 80% female workforce to make our clients comfortable.
In fund management, the rules of the game are the same for men and women, right? So how does this strategy in your PMS benefit women investors?
Honestly, the strategy is not benefiting women investors specifically. The strategy is benefiting our clients. It's just that our clients happen to be women. When we invest, we don't invest differently because the money has come from a woman.
What happens when a male client comes to you?
They don't come because we're a woman-centric fund house. If someone wants to invest with us, we ask them to put it in their wife's name and transfer it from their wife's account. So many people have done this! Even though we're hungry for business, it cannot come at the cost of our ethos. We don't want to forget that we stand for "her money, her growth.
What are the opportunities for financial advisors and MFDs in servicing women clients?
For those who want to cater to women, I genuinely feel that looking at it in a more holistic manner than just focusing on numbers will take you a long way. We bring in a qualitative side to finance, simplify it and don't just leave it at jargons.
In my view, the opportunity size is exponentially big, especially in tier-one cities, and it's growing in tier-two cities as well.
Can you share some tips on acquiring women clients?
The key is relationship building. Don't try too hard to sell, as it can make you sound desperate. It's about building that relationship, getting organic conversations going, making them feel heard and valued, respecting their time and then letting them know how life could be if they were a client. Create that FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and they'll want to be part of it.
Can you take us through your offering in PMS and how it has performed in the past? What is the size of your assets currently?
We're a fully discretionary PMS. Our top sectors are materials, finance, energy, IT, banking, and pharma. Our cap-wise allocation is around 38% in large cap, 23% in mid cap, and 40% in small cap. We use BSE 500 TRI as our benchmark and aim to provide alpha returns. Our alpha returns have been around 7 to 9% month on month, and we stand in the top 12% of PMSs in the country.