In 2013, SBI MF and Wealth Forum instituted the Emerging Advisor Awards to recognize new talent in the IFA world (Click Here to check out last year's winners). Every business and every profession needs young blood to infuse new life and new vigour in the profession, to challenge status quo, to raise the bar, to nudge the profession to scale new highs. The Wealth Forum Emerging Advisor Awards is a humble attempt by SBI MF and Wealth Forum to catalyse just this, by putting a spotlight on emerging talent in the IFA space, and recognize rising stars who are making a mark in the profession within 5 years of setting up practice.

4 rising stars recognized in the 2014 edition

Our first rising star is 35 years old who started his firm in Oct 2012, after a 6 year stint at Reliance MF, handling banks, NDs and the institutional channel in his city. Within less than 2 years, he has built up an impressive AuM of Rs.68 crs, of which Rs. 33 crs is in debt funds (largely corporate) and Rs.35 crs is in equity funds (from 300+ individual clients). About Rs.22 crs of his 68 cr AuM is with Prudent CAS, where he is a channel partner and the balance is directly with AMCs. He has built a book of 350 live SIPs in less than 2 years. Within just 2 years, he is already among the top 5 IFAs in his city in terms of business volumes.

Our first Emerging Advisor winner : Ritesh Kale, Big Bull Corporate Advisory, Nagpur.

From left to right : Navneet Munot, CIO, SBI Funds Management, Ritesh Kale, Nagpur, Dinesh Khara, MD&CEO, SBI Funds Management, D P Singh, ED&CMO, SBI Funds Management and Vijay Venkatram, Wealth Forum

Our second Emerging Advisor is a 30 year old entrepreneur who commenced his business in Dec 2012, after stints at HDFC Bank and Prudent CAS. In just 18 months, he has already made it into the top 10 IFAs in his city in terms of AuM. His total AuM now stands at Rs.170 crs, of which Rs. 60 crs is in liquid/ultra short term funds, Rs. 90 crs is in FMPs, accrual funds and long term debt funds and Rs. 20 crs is in equity funds. He has around 150 HNI and SME clients and is currently focusing on building his equity SIP/STP book, which is now at Rs. 25 lakhs per month and which he is working towards ramping up to Rs. 1 crore a month. When he started his business, he decided to focus on debt funds as he found significant value in them, while he was a little circumspect on equity. In recent months, he has begun focusing a lot more on the equity side of this business.

Our second rising star of the year : Rahul Patel, Aalps Investments, Ahmedabad.

From left to right : Navneet Munot, Dinesh Khara, Rahul Patel, D P Singh and Vijay Venkatram

Our third emerging advisor is 33 years old and started his firm in March 2010, after stints at Vision Advisory and Anand Rathi. Over the last 4 years, he has built up a retail client base of over 500 clients, and an AuM of Rs. 20 crs. AuM split is 12 cr equity and 8 cr in debt funds. His USP is an active advisory proposition, where he advises clients to move into asset classes where he sees the most value. He advised clients to invest in bond funds in Feb 2012 and booked profits in April 13, well ahead of the bond market gyrations of July 13. From April 13, he has been strongly advocating equity funds and continues to recommend equity with a 3 year view. Building up a pure retail AuM of 20 crs in the last 4 years, in a relatively small market is no mean achievement, especially at a time when markets have not delivered great returns and investor appetite for mutual funds was declining.

Our third rising star of the year : Partho Chakraborthy, Concept Advisory, Bhopal.

Partho Chakraborthy, Bhopal receiving his award from Dinesh Khara, MD&CEO, SBI Funds Management

Our fourth and final winner this year is a 29 year old son of a farmer, who hails from a village with a population of just 7,000 and operates in a taluka headquarters with a population of just 30,000. You would think that in a market this tiny, it would be a herculean task to even think of a simple mutual fund distribution business. But this young man has gone far beyond distribution - he operates a 100% fee based financial planning proposition, where every client pays him an annual fee of Rs.14,000 for his financial planning services. He communicates with them frequently through Skype calls from his fully wi-fi office, and now has 20 IFAs from southern Maharashtra who have paid him Rs.30,000 each to learn how to implement fee based financial planning in small towns and rural markets.

The young man who is re-writing the way financial advice is delivered in rural India - Nitin Sawant from Lengara village, Vita taluka, Sangli district, Maharashtra.

Nitin Sawant receiving his award from Dinesh Khara, MD&CEO, SBI Funds Management

Wealth Forum heartily congratulates all four rising stars and sincerely hopes that their achievements motivate thousands of youngsters across the country to plunge into the financial advisory business and build successful careers for themselves - just as our rising stars have done.

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