LGT Wealth India plans to ramp up headcount as it seeks to double the amount of money it manages for clients by helping them cut their reliance on domestic assets.
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LGT Wealth India plans to ramp up headcount as it seeks to double the amount of money it manages for clients by helping them cut their reliance on domestic assets.
Atul Singh, who last year helped establish the Indian operations in conjunction with Liechtenstein royal family-backed LGT, wants assets under management to reach $3 billion by the end of next year. Recent law changes that now permit wealthy people to make investments abroad through limited liability partnerships are allowing LGT to give customers more choice, he said in an interview.
“The demand in India is not a problem. It is the supply of a quality product,” said Singh, LGT Wealth India CEO.
LGT is among a slew of players from Barclays Plc to Julius Baer Group Ltd. and HSBC Holdings Plc all jostling for market share as India’s wealth boom creates an increasingly competitive landscape. Julius Baer has pegged India’s wealth industry at $600 billion with an annual growth rate of 12%.
Singh says many rich families keep most of their wealth in local assets, and LGT Wealth India is trying to change this by helping them spread their risk.
“Indian families need more global advice,” he said. “The basic principle of risk management is ruthless diversification.”
The firm currently manages the wealth of about 1,200 Indian families, said Singh, who ran Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in India for over nine years and helped the transition when it was sold to Julius Baer.
LGT Wealth India recently hired veteran relationship manager Ajay Punjabi from Credit Suisse Securities (India) as well as Chirag Doshi to lead fixed income. The firm has 85 private bankers and is looking to hire a team in India’s densely populated state of Uttar Pradesh to bring more families into its fold, according to Singh, who declined to say how big that group might be.
The firm also hopes to dip into the global client base of majority shareholder LGT which manages more than 305.8 billion Swiss francs ($348 billion). In addition to accessing the Indian diaspora customer base of the private bank, Singh wants to offer LGT’s other customers a proposition to invest in India, a region international customers are typically underinvested in.
“That could be a gamechanger for us,” Singh said.
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