It is said that once a woman sets her heart to achieve something, nothing can stop her. Kiran Vora, founder of Sernet Financial Services proves this. Starting from scratch, she has built a Rs. 900 crore AUM in twenty five years. Jayshree Pyasi narrates the tale of this woman’s success.
The genesis
Kiran started Sernet at a time when she was facing challenging times. She began distributing postal savings as it was one of the few possible avenues that could work without a capital.
Bhavesh Vora, the present CEO of Sernet recalls his mother’s days of struggle and says, “We have seen our mother struggle to make this business work. She used to climb many flight of stairs to get an investment of ten or fifty rupees. Her clientele was mainly house wives and students. The commission used to be a mere Rs. 1000-2000 rupees per month and that too was given with a delay of six months.”
But eventually she realized that postal saving accounts were draining her creativity, time and energy. “She used to spend so much time on paper work and get insignificant returns on postal savings. After this she thought of moving onto challenging avenues of insurance and then later MFs which offered her growth and opportunity for diversification,” says Bhavesh.
Bhavesh joined Sernet eight years after the origin of the firm. “The initial fight of 7-8 years was done by my mother and she was helped by my father Arvind Vora on the administrative side. I joined them as soon as I became eighteen.”
In 2000, Sernet decided to focus on mutual funds. “When we decided to shift our focus to MF instead of postal accounts it was the year of Ketan Parekh crash. The markets were at an all time low and so were the morals. And fortunately our clients shared our view of ‘Neechey mey lene ka aur upar mey bachne ka’. We questioned our clients that ‘agar neechey mey lene ka toh kab lene ka’. Our straight forward approach worked wonders and in spite of market fluctuations the clients stuck with us,” says Bhavesh.
From there to making Sernet a Rs. 900 crore AUM company has been a long and persistent process on Kiran’s part. The firm is truly her baby and even after her retirement she is a keen observer of everything happening in the firm.
The diverse canopy
The Vora family would soon be celebrating the silver jubilee of being into the investment industry and in the quarter century of practice they have done it all. They are into advising mutual funds, equity broking, advising NRIs and the list continues. They are active on the BSE platform for mutual funds. When any Sernet client wants to buy MF units, he just has to call his dealer.
Sernet caters to a client base exceeding a total of 5000 across the entire spectrum of retail, HNI and corporate clients. The AUM is in the ratio of 4:3:3. They have full-fledged branches in Gujarat as well.
The 2009 ban on entry load was a jolt to their business after which they decided to charge a fee to their customers. “Our pitch to them was simple; we are charging less than what you used to pay without knowing. If that works for you we are more than happy to be of assistance if not then we suggest you another advisor,” says Bhavesh.
After 2009 Bhavesh decided to use technology extensively, not only in servicing clients and operations but also marketing. “A firm this size should market aggressively and we want the individuals of Sernet to gain recognition in the industry exclusive of the company brand name. To achieve that we are looking at social networking websites and internet marketing as effective tools,” says Bhavesh.
EP of FPSB
Sernet has another feather in their cap; they have a full - fledged academy ‘Finstitute’ that is the authorized education provider of FPSB for their CFP course.
In 2009 their clients’ children were interested in getting trained as planners so Bhavesh thought of starting an academy. For the first 6 months Bhavesh trained these kids informally about how to run their family business. And during this time he was approached by FPSB to become an EP.” Through Finstitute, we are giving back to the society and are charging a nominal fee required to keep the academy running,” says Bhavesh
Words of advice
Bhavesh’s advice for upcoming advisors is “Believe in yourself and the products you are selling, have faith in your customers and give them a chance to have faith in you. And the practice will automatically happen.”