Amar Pandit is a well recognised face in the media having written articles for leading financial dailies. Ravi Samalad takes a sneak peak in his early days and finds out how he has grown to be a trusted financial planner for 250 families
Amar is a first class degree holder in Electronics Engineer. The engineering pass out landed up a job in software giant TCS through his college campus interview. Amar had his brush with finance during his four year stint with TCS where he was assigned many projects in finance.
“That’s the first time I was exposed to the world of finance in 1995,” recalls Amar. His interest towards finance grew gradually. “I explored a lot of products and various options available at that time. I studied the Indian and overseas market,” says Amar. After parting ways with TCS, he moved to US where he ran a profit centre. Besides, he was working for a banking and financial software firm Infrasoft Technology in US.
“I ran my own profit centre in US. My clients were investment banks, private banks, stock exchanges, trading houses. That is where I got my real experience in the world of finance.” says Amar. Amar’s interest in financial products kept growing. In 2004, he wanted to start his advisory business in US. He was keen on pursuing a CFP from US. Around the same time, the FPSB started providing CFP courses in India. He sensed immense potential for financial planners in the Indian markets.
“I saw a huge opportunity of starting a fee based practice here in India rather than in US. In 2004, nobody talked about fee based financial planning,” says Amar.
He spent three months in understanding and researching the Indian market. After meeting a lot of brokers and officials from mutual fund and insurance firms, he put together a small business plan.
“I started right from scratch with no clientele. Our core product was comprehensive financial planning. The belief was that one has to pay,” remembers Amar. He encourages his clients to opt for a comprehensive financial plan.
He started off confident that there was a broad audience willing to pay. However, the environment was competitive. It was taken for granted that such services would be free. His first couple of years in the business was very challenging.
“Once we made a presentation to a client. While the client liked the concept completely, he wanted a pass back too. We refused him and he was very shocked and offended. We did a lot of educational seminars also but there was no immediate result. At one point of time I thought it was a futile exercise. Ignorance was our biggest competition. People didn’t mind paying commission but they were hesitant to pay a fee. That is when we decided that we have to be a boutique firm,” says Amar.
Today he has the flexibility to charge his clients. He works closely with a team of 22. Majority of his team members are CFP holders with a considerable experience in the industry. Each team has well defined tasks and responsibilities. . Amar has a financial planning team, client acquisition team, client servicing, and a product team. He works closely with lawyers and CAs for implementing the financial plans.
Amar is a voracious reader. His office and house are filled with wide ranging books. He prefers to read books on investments and business. He enjoys movies and cricket. He recently watched No One Killed Jessica with his family. He wants to catch the latest release Tanu Weds Manu.
He has penned three books with CNBC. He is currently working on his next two books. His fourth book would be on Financial Planning and the fifth one on Financial Fitness. Not only this, he has plans to launch a board game named Financial Premier League.
He has plans to scale up and build a world class organization for which he has to have attract the best talent who share the same passion. It should be a trusted advisory firm which will work with families for the next few decades.
“An advisory model will go way beyond the traditional distribution model. A lot of time you have to be a financial coach for your clients. It’s not just about money. It’s much more than that. If two people decide to work with each other then distance is not a barrier,” believes Amar. Besides Mumbai, his clients are spread across cities like Chennai, Delhi and the Gulf region. He is in the process of setting up an office abroad. Domestically, he plans to open offices in Chennai Bangalore and Hyderabad.
His business is not just focused on financial planning. He also advises clients on how to start a business, fund raising, and investment banking kind of activities. His clients include NRIs, doctors, lawyers, celebrities and corporate honchos. He has a team which trains corporates.
He and wife Laxmi have two daughters Reet and Preet.