28th February 2012

Consider this scenario : You are among the leading IFAs in your city and are counted among the top 50 in the country, are regarded as one of the finest wealth management boutiques in the country - and yet, you manage this with a staff strength of just 2. You choose the clients you want to work with, and turn down clients who are not compatible with your style and philosophy. You insist on having a comprehensive first meeting with a prospective client, and then send him away to think about whether he really wants to do business with you, in the manner you prefer. You work strictly by appointments - clients don't just land up, nor do they expect you to drop everything and run for an unscheduled meeting. You are able to slip away for annual vacations to exotic locales, and completely tune off work. You've found a near-perfect work-life balance and exude calm confidence and good cheer at all times.

Sounds outlandish? Far-fetched in our market? Straight out of success stories you've read about US and UK based advisors - and always wondered whether you'd ever see a time in our market where such a scenario can actually play out? Well, you don't have to go to US or UK to discover such a professional practice - there's one in Pune, and its called InTrust Advisors LLP.

Nilakshi and Christopher Louzado gave up their wealth management jobs at ANZ Grindlays Bank in Mumbai some 15 years ago to set up their own advisory firm in Pune - in the quest for a better work-life balance. If their professional practice looks like an advisor's nirvana today, that's because they have painstakingly built it up that way - over the last 15 years. Fire in the belly to succeed, an uncompromising approach to the way they work, years and years of hard work, modest ambitions that don't come in the way of quality, and a passion for the advisory profession - that's the heady mix of ingredients of this rare success story.

WF : Why did both of you decide to quit your wealth management jobs at ANZ Grindlays and set up your own firm?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Living in Mumbai, we were travelling 7-8 hours per day as a couple to get to and from work alone. Also, we were just married and wanted to start a family. Pune was a good choice as one set of parents lived here for support and quality of life was expected to improve substantially with more time at hand. We had also invested in a small office here from our meagre savings of 5 yrs and this helped too.

WF : Can you please take us through your journey as entrepreneurs?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Well, Nilakshi initially took up a job with BNP Paribas (and launched Private Banking for them in Pune) to put dal-chawal on the table. Chris started on his own in June '96. There were days when all he would have achieved in the whole day was to" eat his lunch dabba" It took him three long years to build up a modest clientele and establish an identity in the Pune Camp area. Nilakshi joined him in Nov '99 as workload increased and the practice could sustain two mouths !! ..

WF : What is the size of business today and what are the products and services you offer to your clients?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Business grew slowly. In fact we reached any critical size only after 2006-2007. We took 10 long years to establish ourselves from scratch in Pune. It also took that long for referrals to start coming our way from existing investors. We do MFs of course, also FDs, Bonds, secondary market Bonds, housing loan mortgages, PMS products. We also have a tie-up with lawyers for investors legal work like POAs, Will Writing, etc . We do selling of shares portfolios for clients, also transfer of all assets at time of succession, etc.

Although fairly small from the National perspective, we assume we are in the top 5 IFAs in Pune today.

WF : What have been your biggest learnings as entrepreneurs?

Nilakshi & Christopher : 1. A long gestation period - 7-10 years is critical in our line of business if you are starting from scratch.

2. Burning all bridges when moving to being an entrepreneur is the key - if you have a fallback, you don't have the killer survival instinct to succeed anyhow

3. Genuinely Modest personal material goals - This kept us going even when we weren't making any money at all. It kept us focussed on quality, quality, quality.

4. A finance and accounts background - this helped to keep our costs down as we managed and continue to manage our own books of accounts, taxes, incomes and expenses. Also to understand investor's balance sheets and cashflow statements and guide them well beyond just investment transactions.

5. "One can't be everything to everybody" - A part of our mantra for success is look for and run with win-win relationships. Even today, we have a system of declining non-compatible business as well as non-remunerative relationships. The amount of mindspace taken up by non-compatible investors/partners is more degenerative than working with smaller but compatible investors.

6. A deep relationship with investors and other business partners like the MFs, encompassing professional competence but also enhanced by transparency, fairness, ethics and empathy lasts a longer term

WF : What do you miss from a bank's wealth management unit, which you would have loved to have in your own firm?

Nilakshi & Christopher : 1. We miss the readymade analysis of Financial data. That is something which takes up too much of our productive time currently. Readymade newsletters, information sheets, all generated from a central source, vetted for errors is something we would love.

2. Software packages that are just not robust enough. As small entrepreneurs it is difficult to pay for every update in the software constantly.

On the flip side ... we're not compelled to sell target driven "structured products" and "ULIPS" and other unsuited products. Also, we don't have crazy weekly/monthly targets to chase.

WF : You are very choosy about the customers you work with - why is that?

Nilakshi & Christopher : As we look only for long term relationships- 10 years and beyond, we want our investors to be absolutely sure they WANT to work with us. We normally have a non-negotiable 2-3 hour first meeting at the end of which we request them to go away and think for 2-3 days before reverting to us on whether they really are comfortable with our style, services, products and charges. This also means less stress when markets move violently.

After the first meeting of data mining, it also allows us to decide whether our style and efforts will be in sync with our investor's needs. Sometimes we are offering a great service and the investor needs our services too, but perhaps the style does not match - for e.g our expectation of long term portfolio v/s the investor needing trading portfolios.

Also longer term relationships are emotionally more rewarding for both sides. Over the years, so many of our investors have become a part of our close family of friends and I daresay, we rely on them as much as they rely on us !

WF : You've managed to keep your overheads very low despite building up a sizeable AuM - how do you manage this?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Well, in the beginning, there was no choice as there just was no money for employees and service providers. It taught us to manage our own accounts, taxes, operations, communications and follow-ups. We both are tech savvy enough to make our computers an equal partner in our LLP.

ANZ Grindlays had taught us another excellent skill - the ability and to do each task only ONCE, so there would be no errors, no come-backs, no follow-ups. To this day we keep error ratios very very low, we think ahead so when an investor is with us, we do as many tasks as possible, so he doesn't have to come back in a hurry.

We work strictly by appointment - so we have a chance to plan each meeting and mine it efficiently for all pending tasks. Again, advance planning means fewer comebacks. We work on a very good diariser system so pending tasks also come up and get done regularly.

Having said this, we have to admit that we work with fewer investors than most other IFAs.

WF : You manage to take fantastic vacations - where you completely "switch off" from work. How do you manage to do this? How are customers taken care of, in your absence?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Vacations, keeping sundays only for our two daughters 15, and 13, keeping an hour or so daily for our exercise and yoga class. These are actually the priorities. They get fitted in right at the beginning of the year. Managing work around these is our real challenge. Fewer number of investors and also loads of advance planning in each portfolio allows us to slip away for short periods now and again.

WF : Why did you convert your firm into an LLP? What are the advantages of this arrangement?

Nilakshi & Christopher : We needed a structure which would allow a limited liability without the hassle of a plethora of regulatory requirements that a private limited company does. I believe we were among the first 50 to file for LLP status when it opened in India.

An LLP also allows an unlimited number of partners so in a way it is advance planning for when consolidation / mergers happen between IFAs

WF : You've always struck me as a couple who truly enjoy doing what you are doing and who are totally at peace with who you are and what kind of business you want to and don't want to do. What's the secret of this near-nirvana state of mind?

Nilakshi & Christopher : I think we are fortunate to both be very very committed to investment advisory as a PROFESSION vs making it into a BUSINESS. As professionals, we realize, there are limits to how big we can grow and therefore, we concentrate on deepening our skills as professionals rather than constantly increasing the revenues or profits from our practice. In a nutshell, doing more things, doing them better, helping our investors achieve goals like foreign education for their children or remote managing portfolios of NRI clients to send them monthly pensions - these give us a fantastic high.

Also, with just 2 other employees, our employee related stress is lower than other entrepreneurs and we like it that way. We would like to grow the partner way rather than the employee way.

WF : What do you make of the slew of regulatory changes that have hit the advisory business since 2009? Are these steps in the right direction? What changes would you like to make in the regulatory framework, if you were SEBI for a day?

Nilakshi & Christopher : We are coming to terms with the fact that the only constant is change. Many recent regulatory changes are great both for the investor as well as the distributor-advisor. Other regulations have their heart in the right place but the implementation may result in amputations of essential limbs. These are the ones we would like to re-look at if we had the opportunity.

WF : For bankers and wealth managers who are contemplating an entrepreneurial plunge, what advice would you give them to help them make a smooth transition?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Burn your bridges, stick to your knitting, make "long-term relationships" rather than clients and give it a minimum of 10 years. Also, the earlier you take the plunge, the lesser there is to lose.

WF : What are your plans for InTrust Advisors over the next 3 years?

Nilakshi & Christopher : Our plans are to deepen our own skills so that we can offer / outsource more and more products and services to our existing investors. Continuing education, both formal and informal are high on our list of priorities

The amount of time we take over each portfolio allows us to take on 1 or 2 new clients each every month. We need to become more efficient to at least double this rate.

We would like to form loose groupings with other like minded IFAs to establish common operational and marketing structures across our own practices, so that we benefit from the best practices across the industry.