By Kshipra Petkar
Financial sector conglomerate Shriram Capital plans to foray into the alternatives segment, managing director and chief executive officer Subhasri Sriram said. “It seems like a natural adjacent product for us,” she said.
The group has a presence in retail financing, life insurance, general insurance, asset management, chit funds, stock broking and financial products distribution.
On Thursday, it launched a wealth management company in a joint venture with Sanlam Group. It has also sought approval from the Reserve Bank of India to commence asset reconstruction business.
In April, Shriram Finance notified about its plan to enter the payments space. On this, Sriram said they are still working on the application. She did not mention a timeline as to when they would approach the RBI to seek the payment system operator licence.
Sriram said the growth of Shriram Finance will be higher than the industry average for FY26. The only area that it will have to keep a watch on is the commercial and passenger vehicle segment, she said.
On borrowing plans for the non-bank lender, she said as it has have just completed an external commercial borrowing, there is no immediate need to raise more capital.
In February, Shriram Finance raised $500 million through external commercial borrowing. The transaction saw participation from global financial institutions, including HSBC, Deutsche Bank, KfW IPEX-Bank, ING Bank and JP Morgan as mandated lead arrangers and lenders.
On the listing of the life and general insurance arms, Sriram said, “If you’re talking about this financial year, no. We’ll see, but not this financial year.”
The new venture, Shriram Wealth, will offer wealth management, lending solutions, protection solutions, global investment opportunities and inheritance and legacy planning. It aims to manage Rs 50,000 crore over the next five years.
The wealth management company has divided the target groups into three segments — Rs 10 lakh to Rs 2 crore, Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 crore and the Rs 25 crore and above.
“Currently, the target segment for the wealth management firm is from Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 crore. We plan to do the other two segments over the next 6-9 months,” Vikas Satija, managing director and chief executive officer of Shriram Wealth, said.
Shriram Wealth, which plans to onboard 500 wealth professionals within five years, is already operational in nine cities. From FY27, the focus will be to provide wealth management services in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
Subhasri said that the focus on tier-2 and tier-3 is a little delayed because the company needs the required technology infrastructure to deal with large volumes. “I am just giving the team six months time to build and prove that we can handle large-scale business,” she said.
“As we speak today, India is about 20% of Sanam’s group value. Given the size of the population, the demographics, growth rate, I think that 20% is going to grow significantly. So, India is one of our core focus areas and I think we will very soon see it playing a larger part,” Thian Fick, executive— India and group initiatives at Sanlam Group, said.