In just three years after getting into stock broking, Hiten has unlocked value worth Rs 5 crore by dematting physical shares.
Completely fascinated with markets, Pune based Hiten Shah started helping his father in his advisory business immediately after his higher secondary education.
His father, Ashok Shah, a CA and CS, had floated Wiseinvestment & Consultancy 20 years back but he was mainly in PMS consulting. Hiten joined his father’s business seven years back and started dealing in mutual funds, insurance and stock broking.
His business doesn’t require him to constantly nudge clients to buy and sell shares to get revenues. Instead, he has spotted a unique niche overlooked by others.
So far, he has helped unlock Rs 5 crore by dematting physical shares which were left abandoned by people. Currently, he is in the process of unlocking Rs 2 crore worth more money.
Hiten’s interest in helping clients demat shares developed when one of his client showed him 145 shares of Exide Industries which the client had bought for Rs 120 each. The client was initially reluctant to go through the lengthy procedure of dematting but became instantly willing once Hiten made him realize that his share value had grown to Rs 4 lakh and he had accumulated 2900 shares.
This set Hiten thinking. He realized that there were many such clients who had abandoned their physical shares and were in the need of help. He started advertising in local newspapers about his services to acquire more such clients and the results were encouraging. Slowly, more clients came through referrals and direct marketing initiatives.
Hiten says that sometimes clients are unwilling to demat their shares citing their disinterest in markets. It is only when Hiten apprises them of the present value of their shares when they show interest in getting them dematted. In fact, soon after the interview, he was to meet an NRI client residing in Abu Dhabi who has some 45000 shares of Reliance Industries worth Rs 35 crore now to help him demat them.
His clients are more than willing to pay him a fee for the efforts put in by his team. Hiten charges 3 to
3.5 % fee depending of the level of engagement. He charges a lump sum fee if the share value is less. Hiten claims that he has not lost a single client till date! He has a three-member team which is dedicated to demat shares.
Focusing on this niche has already made him popular among the advisory fraternity and wealth management firms who refer him clients to demat shares.
Hiten says that there are many people like him who help clients demat shares if the shareholders name and the demat account holder’s names match. If the names match then getting them dematted is fairly simple, says Hiten. However, the process gets complicated when the demat account is registered with another person’s name and shares are held by another person or if the client has not updated his new address with the company. This is where Hiten plugs the gap. Hiten provides a turnkey solution – from making sure the signatures match, claiming old dividends to updating latest residential address with companies. This makes him stand out from the rest who may otherwise not involve themselves in this cumbersome process.
Usually the entire dematting process takes around three to four months. Hiten says that sometimes companies get merged with other companies or are no more traded on the exchanges. Sometimes, the employees of companies headquartered outside Maharashtra are not familiar with Hindi or English which further compounds problems. Hiten’s team has to overcome such hurdles on a day-to-day basis.
He manages around Rs 8 crore in mutual funds and wants to grow his business further. He caters to 200 clients, out of which 130 have invested in mutual funds.
He organizes investor awareness programs in his neighbouring societies and plans to take it to a bigger scale. He is planning to give presentations in IT companies.
Hiten is now getting enquiries for demating shares from cities like Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Jaipur and Rajkot. He is advising people who have unlocked money from shares to channelize them in mutual funds through SIPs. So far 25 of his clients have already started SIPs worth aggregating Rs 65000 per month.
The 25-year-old Hiten is a perfect example of how focusing on niche solutions can help advisors stand out from the rest.