With the theme ‘The decade ahead’, the two-day IFA Galaxy event Knowledge Summit kicked off on January 31 in Mahabalipuram, Chennai. Over 500 financial advisers, mostly from south India attended the conference.
In his inaugural speech, Sunil Subramaniam, CEO, Sundaram Mutual Fund gave his views on the Indian economy. He said that the economic slowdown in India is due to reforms such as GST and demonetization, and all the reforms come with pain before making gains. On the positive side, Indian slowdown is episodic and not cyclical, he added. “Now India’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) is going upwards which shows that we are on the recovery path,” he said.
In his keynote address, Vetri Subramaniam, Group President, UTI MF asserted that equities will continue to offer the best real returns compared to any other asset class. In fact, he said that advisors can expect returns of 12% from markets over long term. Advisors alpha in equity is to choose right schemes and fund managers to get a premium over benchmark returns.
While speaking about the interest rate scenario worldwide, Sankaran Naren, Executive Director of ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund said that globally, central banks have over the last 10 years managed to bring down interest rates and ensured that volatility of equity market is low. However, central banks capability to reduce volatility in the next 10 years is going to be much lower than the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, Swarup Mohanty, CEO, Mirae Asset MF gave an interesting presentation on evolution of advisory in the next decade. He said that going forward advisors would have to be ready for fee based advising. Advisors will have to improve their relationship building skills to embrace this change.
Ajit Menon, CEO, PGIM India MF talked about lessons for the next decade from the point of view of an US advisor. He said that advisors should offer value added services by adding multiple products and focus on becoming financial planner instead of becoming sellers or agents.
Shobhit Mehrotra, Senior Fund Manager, Fixed Income and Head of Credit, HDFC MF spoke about risk management in debt funds. As a fund manager, he said that risk mitigation is the key in debt products. HDFC MF strictly follows SLR framework i.e. safety, liquidity and returns and safety is the topmost priority of his fund house. Given this framework, HDFC MF was able to r IL&FS, he added.
Apart from this, there was a panel discussion on ‘Relevance of distribution in the next decade’ and the panelists were Raghav Iyengar, Chief Business Officer, Axis MF, Bhavdeep Bhatt, Co-Head Retail Sales and Distribution, Aditya Birla Sun Life MF, George Heber Joseph, CIO and CEO, ITI MF, Siddhartha Bhattacharyya, VP and Regional Head, Franklin Templeton MF, VL Narsimha Swamy, Regional Head South, Principal MF, Srikanth VJ Tanikella, Chief Operating Officer, Mutual Fund Operations, CAMS.
Other interesting presentations were made by Nimesh Chandan, Head-Investment, Equity, Canara Robeco MF, Ganesh V, MD and CEO, Kfin Technologies, Ashish Modani, Founder, SLA Financial Solutions, Saugata Chaterjee Co-Chief Business Officer, Nippon India MF and Benis Kumar Moses, Partner and Behavorial Architect, FinalMile Consulting.
In an innovative format, participants were asked to post their questions on “Whova” app, which were answered by Mumbai based IFA, Sadashiv Phene.
Babu Krishnamoorthy, President, IFA Galaxy, K Shobana Apputharaj, General Secretary, Mohan Ram.R, Treasurer, and executive commitee members A.K.Narayan, S.Srinivasan, K.Ramesh Bhat, Valady V.Barathwaaj ensured that the event turned out to be an ideal platform for advisors to learn, network and bond.