About
Founded in May 2002 by some senior private bankers, Client Associates (CA) is a “multi family office firm” to provide a professional platform of private wealth management services in India.
The company operates out of six offices at Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad. Over 19 years of its journey CA has grown organically to advise more than a few billion USD of assets owned by wealthy and ultra-wealthy families of India.
It has a team of 135+ members with the average experience of each advisor being 15+ years. The total number of RMs that the company had as of 2019 were 50 (Source : Asian Private Banker). The assets under the company’s advice is approximately $4.3 billion which as of 2019 was $3.8 billion (Source: Asian Private Banker).
The company is registered as an investment advisor with SEBI, the registration number being INA100010660.
Its team of private bankers manages 850+ active relationships including CXOs, entrepreneurs, family business owners and celebrities.
Key staff
Himanshu Kohli – the co-founder of Client Associates. He has over 2 decades of experience in the areas of Investment Banking & Private Banking. Prior to setting up Client Associates he worked with Deutsche Bank Private Banking, DSP Merrill Lynch and London Forfaiting Group. Himanshu is an alumnus of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) from where he did his B.Com (Hons). He received his Master’s degree in Finance & Control (MFC) from the University of Delhi. In 2008 he was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Department of Financial Studies, New Delhi. LinkedIn Profile
Rohit Sarin – the Co-Founder of Client Associates. He has more than two decades of experience behind him in the areas of Corporate Finance, Private Banking and Family Offices. Prior to founding Client Associates he worked with Deutsche Bank, ANZ Grindlays Bank and Kotak Bank.Rohit earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Planning from School Of Planning & Architecture, Delhi and received his Master’s Degree in Finance from University of Delhi. He was honoured with the “Distinguished Alumnus Award” from the Department of Financial Studies, University of Delhi and was the Govt. of India Merit Scholar at Modern School, Delhi. LinkedIn Profile
Pawan Kumar – Head of investment research and asset allocation. He heads the Investment Research & Asset Allocation function at Client Associates and has more than 11 years of experience in Equity and Debt markets with expertise across Investments, Research, Asset allocation, and Product Selection. He has been a gold medallist in both graduation and post-graduation, and is a CFA charter holder from CFA Institute, USA. LinkedIn Profile
Services
- Family office services
- Private wealth management
- Estate planning
- Real estate advisory
- Investment banking
- Lending solutions
Investment philosophy (for firm)
The foundation of Client Associates was guided by a single minded client centric approach. Its practice model was built around the needs of a client. Client Associates’s differentiator is that it manages the total financial affairs of its clients. In other words a Client Associates Advisor assumes the role of the “Family CFO” of his/her client.
Client Associates follow a process based approach for private wealth management. This process focuses on accumulating, protecting and growing the private client’s wealth.
A few ingredients of their process have been listed below:
Financial Diagnostic: This a process that defines aspirational needs, determines risk appetite and strategic asset allocation. They use a scientific process to quantify the requirements of the client to arrive at the most critical decision behind investment success which is determining the risk profiling of the client.
Sourcing best fund managers and investment ideas: This is considered by the company as the second most important decision behind investment success which is said to be done with a scientific methodology.
Execution and investment performance monitoring: Once the investment mandates and benchmarks are defined, the asset allocation is made. They have a reporting system that tracks the performance based on the state of the art(unclear) and accurate performance measurement techniques that allow clients to measure their respective performances.
Risk Management : The company uses in house quantitative models to reduce risk and optimize return per unit of risk.
Media
MMI interview with Himanshu Kohli
to summarise key points
Regulations have pushed the Wealth Management industry towards greater transparency: Rohit Sarin, BW Business World, Sep 2019.
Regulations have pushed the industry towards greater transparency in engaging with clients which in turn has pushed the industry from chasing upfront transaction-based revenue from selling products to building recurring annuity-based revenue linked to assets under advice and the clients have also understood the importance of availing process-driven portfolio advice customised to their specific needs rather than accumulating a barrage of impressive-looking complex investment products were some of the things that he talks about in this interview that speaks a lot about the company.
Client Associates hopes to cash in on the ‘reallocation’ effect, eyes 30% growth in assets under management, The Hindu Business Line, 26th Aug 2019.
This article holds importance in the way that it speaks about how Client Associates focuses on open architecture models to avoid conflict of interest.
Analyst questions
- For growing a client’s wealth, how much alpha do you think a wealth management firm can add and in which part – asset allocation, product selection, rebalancing etc?
- What is the methodology by which the quantification of aspirations are done?
- What does the firm look at for classifying an ideal fund manager or idea for the suitability of the clients?
Prepared by : Madhav Patel
Date : 01/03/2021.
Peer Reviewed by:
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