Ravi Samalad traces the meteoric rise of Pranav Muzumdar
Mumbai: Pranav Muzumdar’s office in located in the first floor of a quaint pent house in Jogeshwari’s Saraswati Baug area. A small office board is hung at the entrance of staircase which is visible only once you enter the premise.
Pranav has been in the industry for 15 years and is a part of Mumbai’s Next Advisors group of IFAs. Back in the 90s, as a chartered accountant, he used to give tax-advice to his company’s clients. These clients often turned to him for investment advice also. He used to refer these clients to other advisors. However, often the clients were disgruntled by the quality of advice and service rendered to them.
To fill this void, he thought of becoming an advisor himself. After all he had the knowledge of equity markets and was an expert in tax. Thus, he floated Mangsidesh Investments in 1996.
To spread the word he also used the flier strategy adopted by Nikhil Mehta, who happens be a fellow member of Next Advisors. He would circulate fliers in English and local language dailies in nearby areas. The conversion ratio was less but it helped him build an initial client base. The people he used to advice on tax with the accounting firm also became his clients.
As time passed, he stopped the flier activity. These days he circulates magazines, published by the Next Advisors group to a set of database.
He manages a mix of 1,200 HNI and retail clients with the help of his 18 member team and controls an AUM of Rs. 220 crore in mutual funds. He has a branch office in Mira Road area of Mumbai.
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His firm offers equities, commodities, MFs, insurance, postal schemes and RBI bonds. He dabbled in equities in 2003 by converting some of his existing mutual fund client base. He is advising them on equity and commodities also. However, he doesn’t churn their portfolios like a typical trader. Only when the market is down, he advises his clients to cherry-pick few blue chips and mid cap stocks. He has 400 equity clients.
These days he is organizing investor seminars with the help of AMC officials and fund managers in Mumbai. He has already held 8 seminars so far. However, he says that the turnout is not huge. He has converted 20 clients from these seminars. He doesn’t like cold calling people.
Today he is satisfied by the number of clients he has. He doesn’t want to entertain casual walk-in clients. He is relying on the age old referral model wherein the conversion ratio is 90% for him.