The ASK group, which has over Rs 2,600 crore under portfolio management services (PMS), is targeting $4 billion (over Rs 16,000 crore) assets under management (AUM) in the next three years, primarily targeting high networth individuals (HNIs), said Sameer Koticha, founder and director of ASK group.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Sameer said that due to buoyancy in India economy there has been a sharp growth in HNIs over the years and the HNI segment is growing around 20% annually, primarly due to IT, ITeS and other areas of the service sector. Industry estimate shows that these HNIs have potential AUM of around $300 billion, he added.
“There are over 1,00,000 HNIs in the Rs 1 crore plus category and another 2,50,000 HNIs in the Rs 4 crore plus category, who want proper advisors to make it big in the Indian equity as well debt markets on a long-term basis. We believe that given the increasing number of HNIs, the company hopes to garner $4 billion AUM in the next three to four years,” he said.
According to Rajesh Saluja, chief executive officer, ASK Wealth Advisors Pvt Ltd, the company will be using a unique six-step approach to financial planning to help clients meet their life goals through proper management of finances. “Financial planning in India is not very well understood and the current market practice is to sell financial products without necessarily looking at the clients’ needs holistically,” he said.
According to him, some of the key drivers of wealth are a large number of rich Indians moving back to south India from abroad and the number of HNIs has been growing at approximately 19% and hence a strong potential in this area. “Under ASK Wealth Advisors alone we are looking at a busienss of around Rs 2,500 crore in next two years and the company has already mobilised over Rs 70 crore in a span of a month since it was launched,” he added.