For years, Indian investors had 3 primary options: (1) the accessibility of Mutual Funds (MFs) for broad diversification, (2) the customised, high-ticket strategies of Portfolio Management Services (PMS) starting ₹50 Lacs investment, or (3) the highly-tailored set of Alternate Investment Funds (AIF) beginning ₹1 Cr of investment. But what if you seek the sophisticated strategy of a PMS/ AIF coupled with the regulated framework and structure of a mutual fund?
Enter theSpecialised Investment Fund (SIF).
Introduced by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), SIFs are the financial market’s innovative answer to a growing demand. They are designed for investors who have outgrown conventional MFs but aren’t quite ready for the highly exclusive, high-minimum investment vehicles. SIFs are, quite simply, the future of strategy-driven investing in a robustly regulated environment.
What is a Specialised Investment Fund (SIF)?
Imagine SIFs as tailor-made suits in a world of ready-to-wear investments. They offer fund managers the flexibility to deploy advanced, cutting-edge strategies—like taking both ‘long’ and ‘short’ positions, known as Long-Short Equity—to potentially capture returns regardless of whether the market is rising, falling, or moving sideways.
This ability to be an “all-weather” investment vehicle is their most powerful differentiator.
SIFs at a Glance: Key Differentiators
The Power of Strategy: Why SIFs Are a Game-Changer
SIFs are gaining traction because they allow investors to access niche and sophisticated strategies that were previously unavailable or required a much higher capital commitment.
Here are the key strategies unlocked by SIFs:
Long-Short Strategies: This is the flagship feature. Fund managers can buy securities they expect to rise (Long) and simultaneously sell (or hedge against) securities they expect to fall (Short). This dual approach is designed to provide stable, risk-adjusted returns by minimizing the overall market volatility exposure.
Active Asset Allocation: SIFs can dynamically shift between equity, debt, commodities, and even instruments like REITs/InvITs based on proprietary market models, making them inherently adaptive to shifting economic cycles.
Special Situations Investing: Managers can focus on unique opportunities like mergers, acquisitions, buybacks, or distressed debt—areas that often require specialized research and quick execution.
📈 The Current SIF Landscape: Who’s Leading the Way?
Since the introduction of the SIF framework, India’s top fund houses have quickly launched innovative strategies. This is a dynamic space, and new schemes are frequently being approved by SEBI.
Your Next Financial Step: A Consultative Approach
The shift from traditional funds to sophisticated vehicles like SIFs is a natural progression for successful individuals whose wealth has grown. However, the complexity inherent in these specialized funds means that choosing the right SIF requires more than just looking at a fact sheet.
It requires a consultative approach to ensure the fund’s strategy (Equity Long-Short vs. Hybrid Long-Short, for instance) is perfectly aligned with your financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon.
The BigRise Advantage
At BigRise Financial, we don’t just sell funds; we help successful individuals like you navigate the newest and most effective investment frameworks. As a registered advisor for SIFs (ARN-113150), we focus on:
✅ Profiling: Deeply understanding your current portfolio and wealth objectives.
✅ Analysis: Scrutinizing the complex SIF documents and strategies.
✅ Alignment: Mapping the right SIF strategy to your unique financial footprint.
If you believe your capital is ready for a more sophisticated, strategy-led investment vehicle, the first step is clarity.
We invite you to reach out for a private consultation. Let’s discuss how Specialized Investment Funds can form a resilient, high-potential pillar in your wealth creation journey.
Ready to Elevate Your Portfolio?
Connect with a BigRise Financial SIF Expert today.
(Disclaimer: Investments in securities markets are subject to market risks. Please read all scheme-related documents carefully. BigRise Financial is a registered advisor (ARN-113150).)
Know what works: 4 days before the 2022 INDIA budget! See opportunities in RED Indian Markets! “Spray & Pray” time? SIP in Mutual Funds may not work alone!
Market Update: 28-Jan-22 (10:16 Am)
First – we have to be mindful that we are sitting on 2 years of Equity gains!
1000 points correction in BSE, once a rarity, could be seen quite often now & could continue to be observed!
In stocks that you get stuck – you would be stuck for longer now!
Stay away from Penny stocks wherein the end Larger investor could end up buying the penny company in just 5% amount while the shareholders would lose 95%.
Don’t assume that all they will turn: Multi-baggers, as a bigger company is buying them hands-down! (Eg: Sintex in the news to be bought by RIL) No one makes money any further with: the “Spray and Pray” approach! Rather: Spread-well to Grow! The fiscal deficit is at about 6%.
US FEDs are pushed to the wall to do interest rate cycle changes. Interest rates would be more sharp & rapid. So, India’s equity markets would react! (accordingly to volatility). Both US and India are pegged to grow.
India is moving from growth to Value companies. Companies that are cash rich and have a value chain ahead of them to unlock. Pandemic Scare? Indian Markets are more or less out of the scare, and that we can STOP talking about “THE Pandemic” being an issue anymore for NSE & BSE!
Good eco-system in India for: Manufacturing, EV, etc. is shaping well.
What works for you? Select companies now that are good in PEG, rather than PE! Switch over to SEP Strategy (Direct equity) Select fundamentally good portfolios.
Small/ medium Investor: Up to 1 Cr Step-up SIP strategy (Mutual Funds) to: Higher-grade STP/ Boosts/ VIP, etc. to ride through high volatility that continues to stay in Indian markets!
Silver ETF would also be good to invest in, say 5% of your corpus. Also – Market Linked Debentures (MLD) could be explored to your advantage!
Larger Investors: > 1 Cr Pick up from the stable of high-grade AIFs, averse to direct market volatility. The Latest ‘Direct Indexing’ options now are available (investing in underlying stocks & not the stock/ ETF)!
Converting your loosing hand to winning (whether at Job or business) ………………. By switching up to Equity Investments, did pay in this LIVE case study of our own client, a 27-year old!
Smart Money decisions ……………. investing money at hand in Equity!
What beautiful is: “Money Maths” …………. Converting losses to gain altogether …Just needs that mental frame and decision making!
THE CASE: 2020 Covid-time Salary Cutby 12% ……….. ………… Salary last year was at just at 88% ……………..
Employer Salary-hike target for 2021 & 22 ….. slashed by 6% each year ……………….…. own expenses shot up by 7%
………………… Total earning hit was at about 25% each year, making it 25% + 25% = 50% losses in 2 years!
Then in 2020 …… a smart one, pulled down by circumstances but not broken, was guided first-time to venture into better alternative investments (away from Fixed Deposits, PPF, etc) and that too – directly into EQUITY to cover up for the lost earnings. This happened only because there was a clear desire to cover some lost ground, with which this individual came to us. ……. Invested 50% of his reduced salaries (i.e. 44% of their take-home earnings) ……………….
44% Invested amount……………….. grew by an average 77% each year, in 2 years, by this day of 2022 …….
Effectively …………. Loss of approximately 5 Lacs was converted to 12.1 Lacs of gain! Technically from a -25% setback on 2 years’ earnings to a +41% Gain at the end, today!
Overall – the situation actually mimics a salary-hike of a whopping99.26% each year on the original salary of 2020 (which was so-called pandemic affected or reduced)!
Actual Table below.
Note: Actual figures just rounded off to nearest decimals.
Whether INR or $$ ………….. careful thought and courage to solve an on-hand financial problem is all it takes to make your status better! Equities are a good option if done well with the right advisory. Never fear it!
Equities still look pretty good for the next 1-2 years in India, owing to the massive gain India sees from a variety of global factors. And taking that route – would pay you in the short or long run!
Moral of the Story: Consciously find ways to grow your earnings/ savings! Seek professional advice. Take calculated bets. Never fear Equity!
Real Case study & compilation by: Rishabh Aggarwal (Investment Expert) BigRise Financial™
Tax Savings till 31-Mar-21 Up & Above 80C, 80-D for all Private & Govt Employees
Ever dreamed about a time in the Indian Tax system (IT) wherein you could save more tax on your earnings by investing for your own essential purchases? That too, by investing is some existing IT brackets that give you a bigger tax-break this financial year (FY 20-21), up and above the defined 80C (1.5 Lacs), 80D (25K for under 60 years of age), etc. section limits as laid out by the IT Department of India. It’s possible! It is Section-10 that now offers you a widened advantage.
Here’s your chance! Considering the pandemic hit economy & a bid to boost consumption and sentiments of the private employees (after the central government employees were given the benefit of this in Oct-20), the Finance Ministry has been able to income tax exemption benefits of Leave Travel Concession (LTC)/ Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) cash voucher scheme to all private employees in India.
What do you need to do? Get to know your total LTA allowance for the 4-year block (2018-2021) from your employer, spend in equivalent of minimum 3 times of that for insurance products (ONLY with the online purchase) and then just submit the digital copies to claim the exemption as the filing of ITR happens. Note: All purchases that have 12% or above GST (Goods & Services Tax) implied on them, qualify for the highest exemptions for all spends up till 31-Mar-2021. This means all insurance products including: Life Insurance covers, base Medical covers, Mediclaim Top-ups, Accidental Riders, Temporary Disability & Total Permanent Disability, Corona Covers, etc. for you or your family are all under this. Note: You could purchase single or multiple products as well.
Example: Generally, 40K is the LTA given to you in every 2 years which means that you have to be able to spend INR 1.2 Lacs ( (i.e. INR 40K multiplied by 3) in total to get tax exemptions under this section (inclusive of GST). Note: The upper limit for claiming tax exemptions for this year is fixed at a maximum of INR 1.08 Lacs (i.e. INR 36K upper cap of LTC/ LTA multiplied by 3 times). This includes the GST spends also. If you spend lesser than 1.08 Lacs, say INR 90K, you would then qualify for reduced tax exemptions pro-rata basis of INR 30K for this year (which is INR 90K divided by 3). This literally means that basis your tax slabs (even if you are at the least @5% or highest @30%), your tax savings could be directly between 5.5% to 9.5% – which definitely become pure savings!
Further, another important advantage is that you save your leave encashment (which otherwise you would’ve lost if you took leaves to do domestic travel with your immediate family to claim LTC/ LTA). Depending on how your employer would treat this, you could encash them also – as a bonus! And let’s not forget other sundry expenditure that would’ve happened while you would have been on travel.
More savings above 80C & 80D till 31-Mar-2021 only
Technically, you may consider these savings as a ‘direct discount’ on your purchase, a ‘vital purchase’ that may have been held up at the back of your mind till now, till when this gift from the finance ministry came in. This opportunity just serves the purpose to go for that purchase now within the next week itself!
You, however, have to be wary of the fact that any existing insurance premium payments (renewals) would NOT qualify for this exemption and continue to be tax-treated as normally in 80C & 80-D exemption of yours. Interestingly, this scheme was opened to private employees in Nov-20 only, but the employers kept it under wraps will when they got certain clarifications from the CBDT department (Central Bureau of Direct Taxation) on the LTC/ LTA cash voucher scheme, which finally, have been notified now.
If you were thinking to travel domestically and produce bills to claim exemptions internally with your employer, realistically does not seem possible in the current era of Coronavirus. Rather, you have a better alternative now to purchase the essential Life Insurance & Health Insurance (also known as ‘mediclaim’) covers and getting a much valid reason to claim exemption. You save tax of a maximum INR 36K for this year clearly!
If you wish to seek more clarity and know all the products that qualify in insurance under this tax extension scheme, please drop in a query to us at:
OCIs and NRIs should Take Guard of these Financial Matters (before relocating to India for long)
As the global lockdown is gearing up to open for the travel industry & international air spaces amidst the global havoc caused by Covid-19, there might be a teeming number of Persons of Indian-origin (PIOs), Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Expats staying outside India, who may be looking at this opportunity early-on to return to their homeland: India, forever. This could be on account of unfortunate events of losing their jobs, businesses, or other reasons caused since Jan ‘2020, as an after-effect or economic turmoil caused by the corona scare, worldwide.
We spoke to a few of our existing clients residing overseas who are working to move back (singly or as a family) and wanted to know all likely financial aspects to watch out for and settle. It is imperative to make their exit smooth and possibly avoid any legal disputes arising on their names when they’re gone from their current country or upon their arrival in India! With this, for the benefit of the larger Indian-origin community across the globe, we decided to write this for every affected person’s act accordingly.
Please share this with all the Indian-origin community in your circle to help them with awareness on “What all to Settle” before they left their overseas home countries. You never know if they also are sadly affected and be packing at this time to move to India, immediately as the global skies open for them to travel.
Prepare: ‘Transaction List’ (Current Country)
Breathe out and gather enough courage and patience to list out all financial matters to settle in your current country of stay (not India), besides any of your personal agendas that need to be reconciled as well. The financial transactions list may include:
Processing of all digital/ physical paperwork from your existing employer (if any) including appointment and relieving letters, salary certificates, full & final settlement notes, etc.
Closure and withdrawal of local bank accounts and withdrawal of money.
Settlement of outstanding mortgage payments on housing loans, or settling the rent or advances of your currently occupied dwelling.
Clearance of outstanding dues related to credit cards, personal or business loans, etc.
De-registering yourself from the local ‘Tax Office’ to avoid penalties and claim tax refunds (if any).
Cancellation of contracts related to Telephones/ Mobile connections, gas & electricity bills, vehicle parking dues, internet, TV & related paid subscriptions & licenses, domestic travel bills or outstanding, Fitness center subscriptions, etc.
Terminating contracts related to any other offline or online platform subscriptions including ones to transact Equity/ Stocks/ Derivatives, etc., Life, Disability & Critical Illness insurances, Health Insurances, etc.
Forfeiture, cancellation & returning of government-specific IDs and their closure as applicable to your case, not limited to: Individual IDs (like Social Security Number, etc.) Driving licenses, etc.
Processing to cash-out or transfer your pensions to India (eg: HRMS-UK pension funds could be moved to India through the process of QROPS with the help of a chosen financial advisory from India)
Disposing-off your car, other vehicles, or any of your existing belongings that need to be squared-off.
School passing/ migration certificates for your children’s admission (if any).
And most importantly, consult a trusted financial advisory in India to discuss the next steps to your financial success in India.
Words of Caution:
You cannot afford to omit listing any financial liability in this list, as not terminating or settling that may adversely trigger legal threats against you in your current country or in India as well.
If you have pets/ animals, you may look at donating them to locally available non-profit societies. If you wish to bring them to India along with, you must book order through an export agency or speak to the airline cargo to arrange for its delivery to India and pay the cost accordingly.
Move all accounts where you receive physical mail or posts, carrying your printed personal information, to the online mode. This is to discontinue physical mails and start receiving soft copies against those papers that maybe bills, promotional letters, etc. This serves the purpose of avoiding the illegal use of your credentials by anyone receiving those physical mails in your absence.
If you wish to move any of your belongings to India, you must also contact a shipping & packaging or courier/ logistics company that could help pack your stuff and eventually ship it to India. You must do your bookings ahead of time to avoid a last-minute rush. Note: Make sure you get all your cargo boxes labeled with at least 2 emergency contact numbers on them. In case they are lost in transit, they could possibly be traced and returned to you.
Lay special stress on closing your credit card outstanding as the credit card companies can charge you several thousand extras, year on year, only because of their high-interest rates. If you do not pay heed to close the credit card’s outstanding dues, even after returning to India, the respective credit card companies or banks, in an attempt to recover dues, may hunt you across the length and breadth of India (through their commissioned recovery agents) and be troublesome to your safe and pleasant stay in India. Furthermore, you may be blacklisted by the respective credit organizations/ banks and your entry to the local ports/ airports of your current home country also may be barred. All of this is generally reflected in a country’s airport immigration systems as well. So, take steps to amicably settle this financial matter, even if it is financially challenging.
In the context of your property mortgage, you can expect to negotiate with your lending bank to square off your loan, explaining your current financial condition and by negotiating with them to possibly acquire the property and pay you some amount instead (if the loan outstanding is quite high). If this case does not work, employ a professional property broking company (into sale and purchase) to sell your property on your behalf and settle the bank’s outstanding and dissipate the property matter. Make provision for the property broking company to transfer your balance amount to your NRE account.
Note: You can always add to this list as desired.
Prepare: ‘Transaction List’ (INDIA)
Take a sigh of relief as you go on to knocking-off items, one by one, on the list above. Here, it is equally important for you to prepare this transactional list to be successful in India, actually, even before you touch the Indian surface. You could start executing the first few steps sitting wherever you are currently, outside India. You are strongly advised to work with a ‘Financial Consulting’ company based out of India that works across geographies, to action this chronological list:
Updating popular Indian job sites or manpower consultants with your details and post your most recent & fitting CV/ Resume.
Booking flight tickets & travel insurance (covering corona) to India or knowing the revised procedures/ guidelines to get that done, as well as, quarantine guidelines on landing in India.
Planning your Term Life Insurances before your travel with the help of a licensed Financial Advisor from India.
Filing application for medical or Health Insurances for yourself & family (before the travel) with adequate cover through a Licensed Financial Advisor’s help in India.
Readying your rental or permanent accommodation in India. In case, you don’t have a permanent residence in India, the advice instead is to move to a pre-booked guesthouse/ hotel accommodation as you land in India and take a week or two to see, select and finalize your permanent-stay house location in India.
With children traveling along, writing to possible schools around the expected location, in the Indian city where you plan to reside and seek admission guidelines/ paperwork needed for children’s prompt admissions on landing.
Activating your NRE/ NRO bank accounts online (if non-functional) or open new ones.
Applying for a local SIM card (mobile) as soon as you land back.
Applying PAN Card (Permanent Account Number) if not already available in India and understand the new tax liabilities from your Financial Advisor.
Filing for your Indian taxes, in case you already had an Indian PAN card, for the previous financial year. Do this even if you had to file zero taxation, as this will help you secure a credit card or a quick personal loan, in case of a need or emergency.
Closing any of the active international credit cards that you have carried along from your home country to India, by paying all dues & balance.
Most importantly, when it comes to investing money, working with your Financial Advisor to create an investment pool that immediately starts income to take care of your daily needs. This could be planned with the funds that you carried back to India after the wrap-up.
Words of caution:
Keep a loaded travel kit that includes: First aids, masks/ gloves, hand sanitizers, clothes, etc.
You cannot afford to miss any paperwork back in your home country, as once in India, it would be very difficult for you to communicate long-distance with external parties.
Before flying off from your current home country, be sure to have some cash handy, along with an active credit card or more.
Banking accounts (NRE/ NRO) need to be activated and made online functional so that you are able to transact and pay money for any transaction done from your current country of stay or India.
If you have children traveling along to settle in India, engage them in getting contacts/ emails of their best buddies to stay in touch with, even if they are gone. This would help boost their spirits in India and shouldn’t make them feel suffocated with the large change.
Not closing as well as not paying dues of your international credit card may attract heavy penalties. Also, all global financial systems are nearly connected, unlike a few years ago, so escaping the liability is not an option.
You can even go on to applying for jobs directly with employers and top corporate of India, on their respective sites. Conduct a comprehensive search of best companies & employers in the city where you are landing.
Term Life Insurances would only be available to be taken from India whilst sitting in your home country, only if your country (outside India) is in the current list of approved ‘eligible’ countries, as per specific life insurers in India. This is amidst revised guidelines, currently prevalent for coronavirus conditions, which limits Indian-origin sitting in certain countries currently, to avail a life cover in India.
Your eligibility for medical or Health Insurance cover, whether to be purchased sitting in your home country or on landing back to India could be discussed with your Financial Advisor from India. With him, discuss in detail any existing medical ailments or allergies and medicines that you may be consuming currently. On touching the Indian base, you may have to follow the Indian government’s quarantine guidelines. So, ready your own supplies/ things of relevance envisaging the quarantine period.
Directly booking and paying for a finalized rental accommodation of stay in India, at a distance, is risky from the angle that you do not know whether that accommodation would fit your exact requirements or not. Hence, your money could get stuck. If you are thinking of purchasing accommodation immediately as you return, you are advised to defer your plan on it. The properties/ real estate market in India is pretty stressed right now and has skewed prices. Also, at this time it will be pertinent for you not to spend a larger sum of money from your reserves to invest in property. This could be reconsidered post you have settled comfortably, say in about 1 year.
Opening or maintaining of bank account (NRE), which is a Non-Resident External account would give you the flexibility to bring back any payout of your bank, property sale, full and final settlement amounts of your past employer, etc. to the NRE account. All interest contained in the NRE stays exempted from Income Tax and Wealth Tax, as well as, is free from any Inheritance Tax liability. To avoid Indian taxation issues, the same NRE has to be converted to a normal account within a stipulated timeframe if you are now deciding to stay in India or you get the option to change the account to a Resident Foreign Currency (RFC) account to keep receiving foreign funds. Discuss with your banker in detail on the same explaining your specific situation.
Note: You can always add to this list as desired.
The crux of the article is that you should work on populating 2 comprehensive lists of transactions, one to be made for your current home country and the second one for the India-specific transactions. You should consult a qualified Financial Advisor to discuss these matters and get a smooth execution, avoiding stress.
Indian-origin people definitely have the flexibility to consult BigRise Financial ™, an Investment & Insurance consulting organization that works in the space of working with Indian-origin across the world including: PIO, OCI, NRI & Expats to get them cutting-edge investment options in India which are into world-class financial organization products and solutions.
To get COMPLIMENTARY advice on this situation, write into: nitin@bigrisefinance.com
Or Drop a WhatsApp on: +91 98182 46300
Author: Nitin Attri BigRise Financial ™
Major Contributor: Koteeswaran Paulpandian (Engineer), UK
Did you have a close look at the total losses in your equity portfolio this morning? The world’s economy has tumbled. The markets are seeing unexpected crashes to lower and lower levels in times of Covid-19. Indian-origin investors across the globe have lost a sizeable chunk of their hard-earned money staying invested in riskier bonds & stocks of all varieties. The market-linked products have eroded their wealth even before they could react to taking decisions themselves or, in turn, their hired & heftily paid wealth advisory doing the same for them. On a war footing, it becomes pertinent for this jolted investor to take ground defying financial steps and draw out a clear path on where to invest next. YES, ‘invest’ even in this bad time.
BigRise Financial™ thoughtfully suggests that you immediately recreate an apt ‘purpose’ with your new array of investments in debt. It appears obvious that your investment sentiments have been hard hit, but honestly, if you do not rake up enough courage to invest all the more now in high performing debt investments, that too overseas, you may not stand a chance to recover your losses even in a decade – forget the gains and high returns. The early set of Indian-origin investors till now including OCI, NRI and Expats who have thoroughly considered these strategic financial planning directions and acted fast enough to execute prompt advice, let’s say in India and have created a big cushion for themselves already against the future market falls, averaged their investment purchase costs, assured decent yield & returns, created a decade long flow of steady incomes and most importantly, bailed out of a loss-making investment portfolio to a quick-start profitable one.
Without an iota of a doubt, you instantly need execution on the 3 steps below that reengineers your existing financial portfolio and sets you up for a winning run, again. Read on:
The First Step: Strategize to cut your equity or market-linked exposure
Over the last 5-6 years, if all you’ve been doing is chasing returns, guess what, you’ve lost them all in less than 5-6 months! Equities, stocks, mutual funds, linked products, etc. have been severed on the streets considering their high-risk proposition. All the sadder if you’ve been locally investing (or rather betting) in equity markets of developed geographies including: US & Canada, UK, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, etc. The reality? Growth does not lie in any of these over-developed countries. You have to be able to ‘think global’ and explore high potential markets (like India) that will help you get past this financial mess happening across the globe, on a strategic front.
Indian-origin by design, across governments, have provision to consult Financial Advisors qualifying in ‘Debt’, cross-country, and get a 2nd opinion on equity assets held in their portfolio versus their square-off against debt. Even if you have to book losses at the cost of bringing down your overall equity portfolio, it is worth a decision. Equities and market-linked products aren’t going up on the growth ladder at all for several years ahead and you should knowingly restrict your exposure to them at max. 25%. The money scenarios in the world on linked products are over! Let us take you through a ‘mind and fact’ exercise which will help you get directions to bail out of this gloomy situation of having a large equity portfolio.
Categorize all your equity & market-linked products on our proprietary 4-point, ‘2-year Equity Non-Performance Scale‘ as per each under-mentioned ‘Equity non-performance category’:
Not-so Promising: Returns between: +3% to -1%
Poor: Returns between: -1.1% to 10%
Extremely Poor: Returns between -10.1% to -18%
Devastating: Returns between -18.1% & higher
Clearly Tabulate:
Equity Name (equity or market-linked products)
TotalInvestedCapital (net invested in each product over time)
NetCurrent Final Value (today, against each product)
Net Loss (which is the difference between the ‘Net Current Final Value’ minus ‘Total Invested’)
Net Loss Percentage (which is ‘Net Loss’ divided by ‘Total Invested’ multiplied by 100)
Equity Non-performance Category (finally define a category seeing ‘Net Loss Percentage’, out of 4 types above)
You can derive the Grand Total Loss of your portfolio by summing up all the categories. At this point, you can take a conscious call to still retain the ‘Not-so Promising’ equity assets, hold and watch them for a while (say the next 2 years) but it is a piece of strong advice to sell or square-off the ‘Poor’, ‘Extremely Poor’ and the ‘Devastating’ ones. In any case, it is advised that you do not keep more than 25% of your money invested in equity & equity-linked investments at this crisis time. By now you have a clear idea of what your product and overall equity portfolio loss is.
Calculating at certain points in time – matters!
The Second Step: Knock-off your equity management liabilities
Investors have realized clearly that investing by oneself, without a deep knowledge of ‘finance’ as a subject would cause them more harm than good. It is a debacle to be investing money randomly, forgetting about it, or not finding enough time to monitor its growth and then finally waking up to a financial nightmare one fine day losing most of your invested capital. Your ‘self’ equity management indeed has taken a big hit on your investment portfolio. Then there is the other section of investors who have hired fee-based wealth advisories who haven’t been better-off either. The advisories have extracted hefty fees out of an investor’s hard-earned money and gained commissions on the top only to be turning the corpus negative in all these years. It is not sustainable for an investor to manage investments himself as it faces the risk of loss by doing things incorrectly. At the same time, since global equity markets are going to be affected for a long time from here, it does not make viable for you to slip money out of your pocket-hole and pay chunks of fee each month or quarter, etc. to these wealth advisories. In reality, you may never be able to recover your ‘Total Invested Capital’.
It makes sense that you take the utmost cognizance of the total money that you’ve lost towards a wealth advisory’s fee/ management and switch to debt-based advisories that do not charge you a single penny. Further, a robust financial advisory specializing in growth or guaranteed debt advising ends up surpassing several benefits and saving you: taxation, currency conversions, insurance cover costs, etc.
Ok, let’s do this. Obtain the total fee statement paid to your hired wealth advisory (as ‘Total Advisory Fee’) over the past 2 years and perform as under:
Add Grand Total Loss amount (from Step -1) and Total Advisory Fee to get the ‘Overall Loss’ on your equity portfolio.
Arrive at an ‘Overall Loss Percentage’ (by dividing ‘Overall Loss’ upon ‘Total Invested Capital’ multiplied by 100).
This now shows your final losses (‘Overall Loss;) including the advisory fee paid all along. Indian-origin investors doing management of their equity portfolio all by themselves were still better off (in losses) as they did not pay any wealth advisory management fee on the top to add to their woes. With the final figures in hand, in the next step, you would have to work with a Financial Advisor from India on guaranteed return debt strategies. Look for a non-fee based wealth advisory only which has a solid track-record on debt advising for Indian-origin overseas.
Indian-origin sets up to sail through this tough time
The Third Step: “Purchase debt overseas to add steady returns”
Debt is going a long way in high performance in this time of coronavirus and beyond. Sooner than you could think, it would be able to build a steady corpus, lump-sum, incomes, or simple flow of monthly or yearly returns for you and your family. As an Indian-origin investor, anywhere in the world, you should take fast steps to explore: Paper-Guaranteed Return debt instruments available for you to invest in India through your Global or Local/ NRE/ NRO bank accounts, sitting comfortably on your laptop in a video session with a licensed advisor from India. The governments and regulators give you the flexibility to exercise your OCI/ NRI rights, technically and financially, only if you knew the power of it. Your Indian-origin status is your financial passport to a wealthier tomorrow.
As you get in touch with a financial advisor in India, you could discuss in detail the equity non-performance list that you prepared from ‘The First Step’ and the ‘Overall Loss Percentage’ that you calculated at the end of ‘The Second Step’. Explore advice around your new investments (against new goals) or ‘guaranteed equity replacements’ (mapping older goals against your existing equity sells or squaring-off). In confidence, get your life goals mapped with tenure, obtain strategic directions in ‘payment spreads’, etc. – all of that as complimentary. The India-based guaranteed return papers mostly invest in government securities and bonds of the highest credit ratings, like: AAA, AA+ which currently are premier global standards in the ‘safety & security’ of investment papers. Further, these papers are backed by the world’s best and most credible life insurance companies making them very popular and highly chosen since last year when the market investments began to sink.
Basis the tenure that you wish to be invested for on these papers, you get a guaranteed return percentage & guaranteed IRR, completely non-linked to any factors of the market conditions, company performances, fund managers, or your hired wealth advisory’s performances. Returns on these papers are completely unaffected from global crises or pandemics, etc. You will be startled to know that several hundreds of Indian-origin staying outside India, invest in these world-class papers each month to get a range starting minimum 4.5% up to as high as 9.5% returns per annum, fixed income, guaranteed. Any day, an IRR of a minimum 4 is easily achievable and guaranteed at the sign up itself by the issuing life insurer. Other high-quality investments guaranteeing greater IRR are also available and only depend on the time you wish to stay invested for (ideally mapped to your life goal).
Indian-origin investors are Ready to Go!
These papers additionally come along with decently high life insurance coverage, say 100K versus the first 10K paid, at a ZERO or adjusted cost. This attracts PIO (Persons of Indian origin) to purchase them especially understanding their home countries have a significantly high cost for life covers. Global large-sized insurers allow the purchase of these premium investments by Indian-origin investors, currently based anywhere, even if they were born in their home countries and not India. These investments can be done online through any bank and are strongly guarded by the regulatory bodies in India. It becomes imperative that you carefully rework your financial goals and take advantage of adding these investments online to your financial kitty.
Ok, let’s do this. Draw a financial charter for yourself using our proprietary ‘Goal Planner with Guarantees’, choosing a ‘Goal Category’ as below:
Short-Term Goal (including: Steady income flows, substantiating for a job or business income loss, lump-sum money needs, etc.)
Mid-Term Goal (including: Home mortgage pay-off, buying a property or car, planning a business investment or expansion, etc.)
Long-Term Goal (including: Children education funds, buying larger house cash down, investing in a business, retirement planning, legacy creation for family, etc.)
Clearly Tabulate:
Goal Category (being short, mid or long)
Goal Description (like: Building post-graduation funds for a 4-year old, start parallel passive incomes, etc.)
Lump-sum Input (to invest at the investment inception)
Yearly Investment Contribution (to add to this goal)
Total tenure (to stay invested or when the final money output has to come)
Total Output (desired corpus, whether in lump-sum or income format at the end).
Basis all discussions and hard facts, the magic advising is done by the expert on debt who should take into consideration your investment and sync along with your past losses. Note: The more structured your goals are; the better your eventual debt portfolio would be. Whether it comes to recovering losses fast or connecting on time with your defined goals with guaranteed gains, both could be easily planned. An example of a structured goal is: Post-graduation education funds of USD 2 Million for a 2-year old child who would need total lump-sum corpus when he turns 21. If you have such simple clarity on your financial goals, along with the frequencies on which you could invest, you are bound to win in a landscape called ‘India’!
The crux of the article is that as an Indian-origin you should work on populating and arriving at your total net loss on your equity or a market-linked portfolio, factoring direct losses, as well as, your wealth advisory fee. In these testing coronavirus times, look forward to cutting your collective equity losses fast by investing in India-based debt (classified under the world’s top life insurers) through a Financial Advisor in India. Stop paying heavy fees to wealth advisory as you would not be able to break even your losses. Put together, you would be able to recover your losses fast enough by buying new debt investments, saving on wealth advisory fees, and gaining high returns from debt. Compared to developed countries, India is much aggressive in debt investment returns and Indian-origin placed globally could invest with ease, sitting wherever they are.
Indian-origin investors have the flexibility to consult BigRise Financial ™, an Investment Consulting organization that works in the space of working with Indian-origin across the world including: PIO, OCI, NRI & Expats to get them cutting-edge investment options in India. They bring world-class products and solutions from the world’s most renowned financial organizations and insurers.
As Covid-19 deepens its economic impact on the business world, the best of the business houses also seem to be falling flat on their finances, breaking down. Losses are mounting for companies on account of a complete shutdown in revenue-making activities and at the same time running overheads & liabilities that are building pressure on their cash reserves. News from across the world is pouring in with company shutdowns, salary stops & cuts, salaries stayed for the whole year, lay-offs, discontinuance of life and health insurance coverages, seizure on incentives, etc. The world seems to have come at a full stop!
BigRise Financial ™ estimates that job losses could continue to happen until Mar-2021. It’s a sad scenario that will push a large mass into the ‘unemployed’ category. Be it any industry, sector or job domain, job losses are inevitable. We commit to helping all Indian-origin across India/ Asia, UAE, UK/ Europe, US/ Canada, Kenya, Australia & New Zealand, operating right from our base in New Delhi, India.
What if you’d lost your job? If that’s written in your face, you would have to face it with formidable strength. A thing to be wary of here is that the last thing, after a job loss, you want happening with you is getting struck by an untimely mishap like: a family member contracting coronavirus & needing healthcare, death of a money earning member, job loss of a spouse as well, natural disasters striking, burglaries/ house-breaks, etc. This unexpected event could have a devastating effect on your financial stability. Regaining financial conscious if such an unfortunate event happens at this time, would be next to impossible. The fact of the matter is that the current ‘weak environment’ is so prone to the occurrence of these mishaps that even one single event (if it happens, god forbid) can leave you gasping for breath.
We recommend you our time tested Financial Path to be well planned ahead of an event in which your job is lost. We strongly suggest that you action these even if you had a job currently.
1. Consult and get a private pure Term Life Insurance Cover?
WHY?
The insurer covers income earners only: Life insurers need current and latest income proofs to issue you a cover. No earning credentials would push you to stay ‘coverless’. Consultation helps you to arrive at an apt life cover sizing.
To avoid family despair: Life cover is your family’s only hope in case you lose your earning potential and in an instance if death hits you on the top untimely, after the job loss. The environment currently has all the elements of high risk in it.
2. Get a private and adequate Health Cover for self & family
WHY?
Employer withdraws it: You have a limited group health insurance coverage through your employer that stays active till when you are working with them. Losing it obviously puts you and all your ex-employer covered dependents at a great ‘Medical risk’.
Avoid accidental spending of your savings: The last thing you could afford at this tough time is to be using your limited bank cash reserves on yourself or a family member’s illness.
Health status favors you currently: Covers are issued by a private health Insurer only until when you are fit. No one can guarantee you a cover if you contract coronavirus today or even if you develop a natural lifestyle disease like: hypertension, diabetes, thyroid, etc. caused by stress.
Crises to manage funds solves, if you plan well
3. Plan crisis-use funds, short & long term recurring incomes
WHY?
To serve immediate crisis: Set aside approximately 6 months of contingency fund to use towards all planned expenses. This fund should factor in the sum of all the various expenses that you are expected to encounter during this period including: groceries, bill payments, children’s school fees, telephone, gas, electricity, etc. Add 1.5 months extra equivalent funds on the top to this to serve as an ‘expense cushion’ for something unexpected or miscalculated coming your way.
To handle short-term recurring expenses: After putting away funds for ‘immediate crisis’, it becomes imperative to plan where to invest. Work with a debt financial planner to pick up best investments & allocate between 25% to 50% of the 100% funds that you have in your reserves, depending on your comfort. Dedicatedly plan this fund to generate incomes to handle expenses that arise post 6 months up till as much as 5 years. These expenses can include household & family expenses, unavoidable family events, business clothing for interviews, insurance premiums, mortgage installments, and all other expenses. Technically, the idea is to build an investment-led ‘income engine’ that translates a natural cash flow to you, like how you had with a steady job earning. This psychologically lifts your confidence & is the key to pass through this bad time.
To avoid any emergencies in mid-term ever: In the future, avoid getting trapped in a clumsy situation like today without an earning. Fire up the mid-term investment engines that generate money for you starting the 5th year while the world continues to sleep, clinging their cash reserves. Explore financially viable options with at least 25% of your balance reserves, while still retaining a min. 25% extra funds in hand as ’emergency expense cushion’. You can expect yourself to be doing a much better job in 5 years from here, and that this surprise income that starts would only bring you more in-hand earnings to support your lifestyle.
Note: If you also hold debt mutual funds (other than the above cash reserves), use a systematic way of deriving income out of it as well. The more the income sources through your investment, the more you would be at rest mentally, during the crisis time. Tabulate all these expenses using system tools to have a clear view of them and hence be better prepared during this adversity.
4. Stop or delay all unnecessary expenses & payments
WHY?
To have better cash flow in hand: Stop needless expenses which you’d overlooked in your account statement till when had a stable job earning. Things like: Extra TV subscriptions (mostly unutilized), various mobile app subscriptions, gym fees, fitness & wellness website payments, fine dining or frequent restaurant rounds, vacations or road trips, private cabs, overspends on online shopping, etc. have to be discontinued at once. You need much more money in hand to handle your basic needs now than crediting it into other providers’ bank accounts. However, keep yourself motivated during this rough patch by doing appropriate spends on recreations.
To avoid larger liabilities emptying your bank: All payments related to mortgages, other loans, insurance premiums, etc. should be explored for ‘formal delays’ speaking in harmony to the service providers of those. Explore moratoriums on these overheads without getting charged on interest and negotiated it with the provider explaining your current situation. Surprisingly, most of them could give you a breather between 3 months to even 2 years at no interest charges, depending on your past purchase & re-payment patterns. Don’t hesitate to write escalation mails to the management of these providers if the frontline staff is unable to help. You would see how the universe helps you if you get down to doing it with conviction. For the ones that do not get solved, negotiate to switch yearly liabilities to monthly/ quarterly without extra charges. Avoid usage of credit cards mostly as you could get extra charges levied on that.
Track your savings and expenses in a financial plan
Lastly, as you have a solid financial plan and strategy in place now and that your expenses are controlled, feel confident to see if you can engage yourself in any part-time revenue generator activity that matches your talent and skills. See, the idea is not to make a little earning here but to be sure that one’s skills are being sharpened throughout the job search time along with keeping one’s morale high. Continue to make a better CV, join recruitment groups on popular job and networking sites, add new skills to your resume learning them mostly free online or at a limited cost. Being ready with future career skills would land you in a new job much swiftly than your competition. Further, spending limited money wisely on education would be a valuable investment. Besides just making through a job with this planning, as a surprise, you may expect a decent hike too.
The crux of the article is that in the event of an Indian-origin losses job, he would promptly need to wisely execute a structured financial plan using his existing funds to generate incomes, as well as, cut or limit redundant expenditures to have enough funds in hand. Such planning would be critical to sail smoothly through a difficult time when you don’t have a job.
Indian-origin people have the flexibility to consult BigRise Financial ™, an Investment Consulting organization that works in the space of financial planning of Indian-origin (PIO) across the world including: OCI, NRI & Expats to get them cutting-edge investment options in India. They bring world-class products and solutions from the world’s most renowned financial organizations and insurers to their clients.
Coronavirus surely has created history! The scare has peaked amongst the India-origin investors worldwide when it comes to the dilemma of staying invested in equity or bond markets & watch their money grind down or not investing at this time at all, only to see inflation eat up their savings sooner than they realized. Having said that, investing in equity and market-linked investments isn’t suggested at all. It is out of question.
Here are the hard facts of the ‘investment world’ for equity and bond investments and why they will not perform for a long time. Before investing your capital next, do consider these realities & business dynamics expected to affect us all until the end of 2023.
COVID isn’t going anywhere. It would continue to financially crush the largest (large-cap) & the toughest of the corporations of the world. Added expenses to handle: Medical compliances, operations, churning of employees/ skills & talent, productivity losses, a challenged sales force, slow deal closures, dwindled margins & profitability, hampered import & export, etc. will kill a corporate’s earnings on the whole. On the other hand, the smaller (small cap) or the emerging businesses (mid-cap) will suffocate twice as much. As a matter of bitter truth, their survival itself is questionable as we move ahead in the coming months & years. Do you really see any ray of hope for the world’s equity markets?
Currencies of the world are eroding fast. Already, the graph today looks visually illogical when you compare the currency of a developed country versus that of developing one, where the weaker countries are looking ‘strong on currency’. The future for sure is unprecedented for the developed. A currency that looked rosy once may certainly not be the same, say 3-4 years from here. At the same time, if the developing nations recover faster in their fight with the corona-caused economic slowdown, guess what, the greatest of the currencies will falter. Industries where export and import was heavily involved or companies who survived on foreign earnings (like IT, steel & metals, oil & gas, textiles, engineering, etc.) are baffling to predict the losses they are in for, now or later. Which currency or industry could you really count on?
The banks are in a tizzy. Bad loans, write-offs, rate switch downs on existing loans, delayed interest payments, pressure on sustaining infrastructure costs to make everything digital, etc. is restraining them to offer any good to investors in: Deposits/ Fixed Deposits, whether locally or through NRE/ NRO accounts. Further, the government is taking rapid measures to bring down the interest rates to push up consumption and drive-up economies of a country. In reality, the sector which is going to be the most non-performing, as per our estimates, is going to be ‘banking’. Investors are beginning to contemplate: Are our monies really safe with the bank?
Now on the better side, one sector unanimously across the world has come up quite positively on the performance charts. It also promises to be the ‘best bet’ in the coming future. The surprise entrant here is the ‘Insurance’ sector. In here as well, the life insurance companies are aiming for a podium finish. A strong reason in practical support of this is the fact that global world-class insurance organizations recently have entered deeper in the most advantageous geographies & world markets to offer a new category of investments altogether referred to as ‘Guaranteed Return’ investments. This category literally from just being a ‘best bet’ as we stated qualifies as a ‘confirmed bet’. At the end of the day, this is the game of investment & growth and not just poker we can bet our money on.
India as a country offers the highest potential fixed income interest rates or guaranteed lump-sum maturities backed by paper-guarantees by large insurers on such investment papers. So, if you have suffered more than frequent blows in your past equity encounters, you may immediately consider consolidating and re-evaluating your portfolio holdings. Use BigRise Financial ™ proprietary: 4-point ‘Equity Non-performance Scale’ (another article) to arrive at your next debt investment decisions, dissolving non-performing equity & market-linked products and cleaning up your equity portfolio.
Understanding the complexities ahead of the stock and bond markets, risk ratings globally remain ‘very high’ basis the above 3 factors. Not diversifying or delaying the decision to purchase & take advantage of the ‘guaranteed returns’ category today, could drive negative returns on your overall portfolio. Your capital invested could also capsize.
Indian-origin including: OCI, NRI, Indians and Expats, internationally anywhere, could explore the following features of the guaranteed insurance-backed products:
Generally, investment starts with a minimum commitment of US $5K per year. The same equivalent can be paid in ANY currency including: Pounds, Dollars, Euros, Rupees, Dirhams/ Dinar, etc.
Fixed income or returns are paid monthly or yearly all of which are guaranteed (written on paper)
The rate of return is between: 4.5% to 9.5% per annum of the total invested. Option for lump-sum payout is also available.
Percentage returns vary depending on the tenure for which an investment is held for. The higher the tenure, the higher is the percentage.
Flexibility to choose the duration after which you need the fixed income to start coming in. You can start from the end of the 5th year onwards to delaying as much as long as 25, 30 years. Note: Tenure is to be decided after consulting the debt Financial Advisor, which is at a ZERO Fee.
Option to start variable (non-guaranteed) interest returns as quickly as Day-1, in case the horizon of investment is smaller. These are other classified debt assets. Interest rates are typically paid in the range of 4.0% to 7.5% and paid almost daily.
You may get an additional bonus on maturity of the duration as well which depends on the offering of the life insurer issuing the guaranteed-paper & the duration/ tenure you were invested for.
Flexibility to choose the number of years you plan to stay invested for.
Option to commit at the inception, the number of years for which the premiums would be contributed/ paid to the investment pool. Ease of paying ‘monthly’ is also given to smaller investments to encourage Indian-origin to do savings.
Most importantly, ease of doing online payments to your investment as is, from any country makes this favorable. However, you have to take a debt Financial Advisor’s assistance to execute it correctly. Advisory in debt is at NO cost at all.
Another most advantageous point is that payments for these debt investments could be done through your local bank or NRE bank accounts, in the currency of your choice. For INR payments, the NRO bank account could be used. This gives you currency exchange advantages (naturally and not by trading) and perhaps saves you 2.5 to 5% year on year. Add this to your fixed income returns and you’re much better than the rest!
Last but not the least, you get the advantage of a FREE or adjusted price insurance coverage along with the investment paper.
Note: All the debt fixed income guaranteed products are heavily safeguarded under the regulatory umbrella.
Indian-origin people definitely have the flexibility to consult BigRise Financial ™, an Investment Consulting organization that works in the space of working with Indian-origin (PIO) across the world including: OCI, NRI & Expats to get them cutting-edge investment options in India. They bring world-class products and solutions from the world’s most renowned financial organizations and insurers to their clients.
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