Indian billionaire manages fortunes for burgeoning new rich
HONGKONG: Nirmal Jain has hit the jackpot serving the new rich in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
The Mumbai banker’s $20 billion private-wealth-management unit became India’s biggest by assets and helped make him a billionaire.
The nation’s demographics are a driving force, as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to withdraw India’s biggest bills from circulation, which has pushed savings into the financial system. India’s young and thriving workforce will support its growth for years to come, Jain, 51, said in a phone interview, pointing out that millennials account for about a third of the country’s population and most of the income.
“Most of it is first-generation wealth, so your clients are pretty hands-on,” Jain said. “It’s not that they inherited wealth, so they have a lot of passion and attachment to wealth and its performance.”
His IIFL Holdings Ltd. more than doubled in the past 12 months, a surge that pushed his net worth to $1 billion for the first time this week, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. IIFL’s profit rose 32% to 2.36 billion rupees ($36.3 million) in the quarter ended December 31, fuelled by growth in the private-wealth unit, where assets under management surged to $20 billion. IIFL eclipsed Kotak Wealth Management, whose chief executive officer said that the group had $17 billion under management as of June 2017, the latest data available. Kotak didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Jain’s fortune is derived from a 23% stake in IIFL, some of which is owned indirectly through holding companies. He and his wife also have an investment in 5Paisa Capital Ltd., a spinoff that offers discount brokerage services and online trading.
Jain is also becoming a force on social media with more than 25,000 followers on Twitter, where he criticised the government’s support of ailing public sector banks. In a recent Economic Times column he called for privatisating state-owned banks.