10 / 88
COVER STORY
2 INDIAN WEALTH MANAGEMENT - ISSUE 1, 2017
How India’s largest wealth
manager stays sharp
Innovation and a can-do, entrepreneurial spirit are evident at IIFL Investment
Managers, in its continued pursuit of growth, says Karan Bhagat – who is also the
latest winner of our award ‘Indian Wealth Management - Award for Excellence’.
The USD500 million IIFL Special Op-
portunities Fund has a mandate to
predominantly invest before and during
the IPOs of private companies. The aim
is to give the firm’s HNI clients the op-
portunity to participate in IPOs as
anchor investors through the Qualified
Institutional Buyers route.
“Could somebody else have done this?”
asks Bhagat. “The answer is yes, but it’s
different... we did it first.”
THE RIGHT CULTURE
The new fund highlights what IIFL In-
vestment Managers can bring to the
table for its clients – and therefore
justify the fee it charges them for a
unique offering.
“You can’t just get up in the morning
and decide to innovate today; that’s not
going to happen,” he adds. “It’s got to
be [part of the] culture.” This also stems
from a mind-set of being willing to try
KARAN BHAGAT
IIFL Investment Managers
new things – and also not being afraid
to fail. For example, when he was only
17, Bhagat, hailing from a ‘Marwari’
As someone who enjoys playing poker
in his spare time, Karan Bhagat is cer-
tainly ‘all in’ when it comes to in the
wealth management game.
He has clearly taken a calculated ap-
proach so far. This has seen Bhagat,
who at 40 is the founder, managing
director and chief executive officer of
IIFL Investment Managers, spearhead
the firm’s growth from a standing start
to a business nine years later with
USD18 billion in AUM from 230 front-
end advisers across 22 locations.
In working with his fellow senior ex-
ecutives to create what is understood
to be India’s largest wealth management
firm, innovation has been a key card
that Bhagat and IIFL Investment Manag-
ers have played to date.
A case in point is the pre-IPO fund that
IIFL Investment Managers’ asset man-
agement arm launched early this year.