The Indian economy is expected to witness sustained growth in the next 10 years, with plenty of opportunities for investors in stocks, Nitin Aggarwal, group CFO of Religare Enterprises and CEO of Religare Broking, said.
“The only thing that we should be very clear about is that there are various companies that are commanding a huge multiple and a price-to earnings ratio and that is not the right price to buy them,” Aggarwal said in an interview with The Telegraph.
Aggarwal said investors should focus on the defensives and the consumer sector. “Infotech these days are not the flavour because of the various headwinds that they are facing. In the longer term, they will bounce back because a lot of initiatives will move to India.”
He said the Religare group is looking at a few insurance broking houses “to acquire them right now. And we are also looking at AMC or the mutual fund business. We are also looking at a few fintechs, whether they can provide us certain things which we don’t have already”.
Religare plans to meet all the investment needs of the clients. “We want our entire clients’ wallet to stay with us and we have services tailored for that purpose. For instance, if a customer wants cheap broking service plus investment we do have in-house products. We are like a Vistara where we can provide a premium service to a client who is willing to pay a slightly higher fee. At the same time, we also have products for customers who want the cheapest rate or for those desires to go from point A to point B. In nutshell, we are complete service providers.”
Aggarwal ignored the threat provided by discount broking services.
“The discount broking services are now becoming a commodity. So, everybody has a discount broking plan, but the key is the best will survive in the long run.”
“In my opinion, the way I see the future of broking houses, there will be a few maybe a handful of discount broking houses that will survive, and a handful of large brick and mortar or traditional brokers you may call them will also survive alongside because they will be able to provide a customer service that the customer requires at a premium price,” he said.
