The Hindu Business Line : SocGen hopeful of 80 clients in first year

THE Societe Generale Group, one of the largest financial services groups in the Euro zone, on Thursday announced its entry into the Indian onshore wealth management business by launching SG Private Banking (Asia Pacific), targeting high net worth individuals (HNIs).

The entity, through its offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, hopes to corner a significant share of the private wealth management business in India, estimated at some $260 billion in the hands of about 60,000 HNIs, Mr Daniel Truchi, CEO of SG Private Banking, said while addressing newspersons here.

SG Private Banking would offer a range of personalised wealth management services to its clients, comprising both the non-resident Indians and the resident Indians.

The wealth management services comprise all asset classes including investments in equity, debt, mutual funds, portfolio management services, commodities and other instruments.

Mr Balakrishnan Kunnambath, Managing Director and Global Head (Indian subcontinent), said the company hoped to manage "billions of dollars" of funds in the first year itself. He said the bank was confident of getting 60-80 clients in the period. The minimum amount of funds to be handled per client would be half a million dollars, Mr Kunnambath said.

Currently, the existing players in this segment of business catered to only about 3,000 HNIs.

"We are looking at people having a minimum investment surplus of Rs 2.5 crore," Mr Kunnambath said, adding that the existing players had not tapped the existing potential.

The Society Generale Group, which has been in India in corporate and investment banking business for the last 20 years, also holds 37 per cent stake in the SBI Asset Management through Society Generale Asset Management.

"We will continue to work on additional expansion of our onshore activities in other Asian markets such as Korea and China as soon as regulations permit," said Mr Pierre Mathe, Global Head of SG Private Banking.

Mr Sandeep Sharma, its Senior Vice-President and Head of Private Banking in India, said to begin with the bank would have a 40-strong team in the country.

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