Lovaii Navlakhi a CFP and founder of International Money Matters is one of the best known financial advisors and planners in India. Ravi Samalad and Jayshree Pyasi find out how Lovaii became a name to reckon with, in the personal finance space
Start of business
An MBA in Finance from SP Jain Institute of Management, Lovaii has the distinction of being one of the first Certified Financial Planners (CFP) in India. After his post-graduation, Lovaii worked with electronics and pharmaceutical companies in their finance departments.
His foray into personal finance started when he joined Indya.com where he was responsible for personal finance. At Indya.com, there used to be a tradition of top management people holding Monday morning speech sessions. During his speeches, Lovaii used to emphasize the need to put money in mutual funds. This led to many of his colleagues approaching him for financial advice.
After the dotcom bust, he left Indya.com in November 2001. Lovaii had no intentions of starting a business but he continued to advice his ex-colleagues on financial matters while waiting to take up his next job.
“I am lucky that when I was frantically looking for a job the job market was in recession. Because if I would have got a job, I would not have become an advisor,” laughs Lovaii.
Many of his ex-colleagues also left their jobs and were keen to get advice from him about investments. He started advising them primarily about mutual funds and soon he began to enjoy the work. After 5 weeks, he got a job offer from a reputed bank but after thinking over it for a month he refused the offer as he had begun to love advising.
Growth of business
He started the business not expecting any kind of returns in the initial phase. But what worked for him was being honest and doing the right thing for the client that helped them grow their assets
“No one was doing honest business. No one looked at what was good for the client - only what was in it for them. In the midst of this, I offered them a change in the form of honesty and decent knowledge and that worked for me,” says Lovaii. His ex-colleagues were his first clients. He did not go to family and friends consciously because he did not want to use emotional blackmail. His clientele grew to 125 clients in the first year purely through referrals from the 15-20 Indya.com colleagues. In 2002 his clients told him to charge fees for his advice and services. Lovaii took that advice and since then he has been charging all his clients.
Move towards financial planning
The move happened in 2003- 2004. The first session on financial planning in India was held in 2003 and Lovaii attended that session. As the session progressed he realized he was already doing the things a financial planner does for their clients. With that realization he decided to do the CFP course more as an endorsement of his abilities rather than anything else. Lovaii is amongst the first CFP batch of 26 people.
NRI Clients
His focus on NRI clients started in 2005 after some of his Bangalore clients shifted to US and they wanted to continue availing his services. At present he has a total of 100 NRI clients with his firm. His clients also include people who already have a foreign investment portfolio.
But catering to NRI clients posed certain difficulties for him as they are not familiar with Indian paperwork. In addition, they want the taxation aspects of both the Indian and foreign markets taken care of and need to be regularly updated.
Due to his knowledge on international investment products he was able to overcome these road blocks. He coordinates with the NRI clients through emails, conference calls, visiting them once a year and meeting them here when they visit India. He also has tie up with foreign financial planners to give his clients the local market expertise in their locations.
According to Lovaii he took to NRI clients enthusiastically as they keep him on his toes and on a personal level the experience of looking after them offers tremendous learning.
Team strength
International Money Matters has a dedicated client servicing, research, administrative and operations teams. With branches in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi the firm has a total of 11 CFPs and 7 associate FPs. The firm follows the fee-based model which mixes advisory and financial planning.
Words of wisdom
“Have a genuine interest in the clients, not just the business. Be persistent. Focus on owning the customer through development of all-round expertise. Do things right for the customer. And grow your competency to get to a certain level,” says Lovaii.