Blackstone-backed ASK Asset & Wealth Management recently started offering its ultra-high networth clients the facility to invest in Blackstone’s global private equity fund, and it is attracting high demand from its customers.
“We have got more demand than requirement,” Rajesh Saluja, Co-founder, CEO and MD of ASK Private Wealth, told businessline in an interview. ASK started recommending the Blackstone open-ended fund to its wealthy clients around three months ago.
ASK Asset & Wealth Management, which has assets of over Rs 79,000 crore, has big growth plans, expanding to more cities, adding more relationship managers.
“It’s big growth. We are investing large sums. We are putting in close to about $25 million, including investing in technology,” Saluja said.
The markets have turned volatile, and the general trend is downward. What are you advising your clients and what are the conversations that you are having with them?
A bunch of them who have seen the cycles earlier and have gone through two or three good market cycles, are mature enough to manage the volatility. Of course, they get concerned and over the last two years many of them have taken much higher risk in terms of the kind of investments they have done or the kind of products they have bought. So they are reviewing their investments regularly to see what’s going on. I think a reality check is coming, but a set of investors who have come into the market over the last three, four years, for them it’s like a little bit of a challenge to see this kind of volatility and we are holding their hands, just explaining how, over the last 15-20 years, this has become the norm for any emerging market and they need to remain invested, just keep looking at their allocation of assets across different types of products and ideas, and stay put. For the last five years, we’ve taken 10 per cent of our clients’ money and invested it in the US market. That has done very well. So it’s really the allocation.
You are backed by Blackstone. How is that working out for you in terms of advantages for your clients?
Yes, because Blackstone has a stake in us, we have access to their private equity fund globally. So, under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme limits, clients can put in money in the Blackstone fund – and its an open-ended fund. That fund co-invests with Blackstone globally. That has high demand. We started recommending the fund three months back. We are allowed to take only 200 clients every financial year because it’s a private placement. We have got more demand than requirement and each one is putting in between $150,000-$250,000, but the good part is you can keep topping it up every year.
What are your expansion plans ?
The wealth management industry opportunity is huge. Blackstone is most excited about that, so we are investing big time. We are expanding from 16 cities to 25. I never thought I’ll open a branch in Lucknow. So we’ve opened recently in Lucknow, Kanpur, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ranchi, Kochi and Coimbatore. So we have Indore, we are opening in Raipur. We are also adding relationship managers. At the beginning of the year we had 65 relationship managers, and now we have 104. By March 26, this number will go up to 200. So 100 relationship managers for the HNI segment, and 100 relationship managers for the ultra HNI segment.
It’s big growth. We are investing large sums. We are putting in close to about $25 million, including investing in technology.
