Best for family offices in India 2022

Last year was perhaps one of the best ones for Edelweiss Wealth Management.

Granted, the last two years of flush liquidity due to the pandemic-fuelled moves by major central banks everywhere have pushed profits up for many private wealth companies. But Edelweiss Wealth Management has been on a seven-year tear.

Assets under management were $2.5 billion in 2015. By fiscal 2022, they had reached $26 billion. Alok Saigal, president and head of Edelweiss Private Wealth, credits his staff for putting in place an ever-evolving wealth management proposition – and for doing a stellar job in calling market zigs and zags.

That’s particularly so over the last year. Edelweiss Private Wealth’s strategy team managed to call the big gyrations in both Indian and global stocks rather expertly. In late 2020, as the pandemic-driven collapse in equities reversed course, Edelweiss clients were well-positioned to benefit.

The best call, though, was a general buy signal for technology shares as their disruptions coursed through markets.

One was how the work-from-home edict produced surges in demand for gadgets and the e-commerce platforms selling them. The second was the unicorn craze putting the Indian economy in global headlines for all the best reasons – young innovators finding frenetic demand for startups. Third, that China’s regulatory assault on big tech would create tailwinds for Indian tech IPOs.

It was hardly an easy environment to navigate given the geopolitical turmoil roiling bond and stock markets everywhere. That included surging inflation pushing the US Federal Reserve toward a multi-step tightening cycle, as well as uncertainty about both China-US and China-India relations.

This is where Edelweiss’s deep experience in catering to more than 2,700 of India’s wealthiest families and advising more than 800,000 Indians came in handy. Saigal argues that his relationship managers excelled in presenting clients with creative and timely strategies with an emphasis on thematic investments around India’s digitalization process.

The rise of this tech-led economy is no flash in the pan, like past periods of optimism that India’s moment had arrived. As Saigal says, Edelweiss’s clientele is more tech-disruption curious than ever before. There’s a growing hunger, he adds, for any investment that positions clients to harness the digital adoption trade.

It helped that 2021 was a record year for IPOs of Indian unicorns as promoters raced to monetize ideas and create waves of new wealth to be managed. Whatever comes this year and beyond, Edelweiss Private Wealth plans to be there to give clients the alpha they want.