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Mr. Jimeet Modi, one of the leading business leaders, Founder & CEO, SAMCO Securities Ltd and the torch-bearer of ‘The Mission Ace The Index’, in a candid discussion with our editorial team.

Q1. Mr. Jimeet, thank you for your time and its pleasure interviewing you.Firstly,our readers wouldlike to know about your journey as CEO of one of the fastest growing BFSI Company?

A1. My journey to the stock market began when I was just 14 years old. After a few ambushes and the skirmishes that followed, I realized thatthe market requires a great deal of ingenuity and in-depth knowledge. After completing my education and acquiring professional degrees of Chartered Accountancy and CFA, I did my internship with Deloitte. I got associated with my family business of stock broking and joined Samruddhi Group as vice president.

In 2015, I took over the family broking business and rebranded it as SAMCO, now one of India's Leading online discount brokers, to assist small investors in stock markets. We at SAMCO offer broking services at 0% Brokerage at a Flat Fee of only Rs. 20 per order. SAMCO Securities was set on an aggressive growth path through product development, enhanced customer experience, revenue expansion and a strategic direction for the firm.

In 2018, we at SAMCO launched The Giga Trading Engine, as part of mutual fund research & investment platform RankMF, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to convert large amounts of market and financial data to search and generate trading/investing ideas. On the back of this tool, we launched StockNote, a one-touch customized trading application that educates investors and keeps them updated about industry events that could impact their holdings. With added features, it is now rebranded as SAMCO Ace The Index App.

Another aim to launch the Giga Trading Engine was also to objectively and scientifically evaluate every mutual fund to help investors select and invest in the best mutual funds out there. RankMF is the only platform that rates and ranks mutual funds based on the underlying portfolio of the scheme. A proprietary research engine analyzing over 20 million fundamental & market data points every-day to rate and rank every mutual fund scheme in the market.

In August 2021, SAMCO announced its intentions to launch MF schemes that truly give investors actively-managed portfolios, that are different from the market indices. The final approval from Sebi was received later that year and we entered the market with our maiden new fund offering (NFO) of SAMCO Flexi Cap Mutual Fund in January 2022. Today with three schemes in market, we have around Rs 800 crore in assets under management (AUM).

Q2. Congratulations for launching an Asset Management Company (AMC). With this launch, you can provide 360-degree investments options to investors in times to come. What is your vision for AMC Business?

A2. At SAMCO MF, we observed that there were a lot of equity MF schemes out there but were doing nothing and were largely engaged in the business of index hugging. We wanted to offer investors active fund management, when they are paying us an active fund management fee. Apart from daily NAVs, the SAMCO MF discloses the active share of its portfolios on a daily basis, so that investors know how much of its scheme differentiates itself from indices. The fund house wants to be charging a total expense ratio of one percent to direct MF investors. The expense ratio for regular plans, which are sold through distributors, include distribution commissions as well. At the heart of the fund house’s investment strategy is finding businesses that can withstand stressful times in the markets.

The fund house uses its Hexashield Framework to identify such stocks. As the name suggests, each company gets tested on six parameters -- reinvestment and growth stress tests, corporate governance and leadership stress tests, cash flow stress test, balance-sheet and debt stress test, competitiveness and pricing power stress tests and regulatory stress tests. Our investment process would also take care of avoiding business at unreasonable valuations, but the focus would be to look for companies that can build long-term growth over the years. SAMCO Securities, which is the sponsor for SAMCO MF, would also be able to take advantage of its distribution arm Rank MF to grow its MF business.

Q3. While a lot of retail investors had flocked to stock market during and post COVID times,however, not too many would have made money. As an industry leader, how would you like to tackle the situation? Are you working on any product innovation around the same?

A3. We have introduced revolutionary products for investors and traders in the past and will continue to do so in the future also.

SAMCO Securities thrives with the aim that every investor in the capital market should not only earn from the market but he/she should beat the benchmark index in terms of earning from the market. In this regard, the firm invited stock market participants to join ‘Mission - Ace the Index’, and take the pledge to prioritize investment performance. SAMCO urged investors to ace i.e. outperform the relevant benchmark indices by researching and analyzing investment opportunities, manage portfolio actively, and adapt strategies according to evolving market conditions.

And, if one is unable or unwilling to manage his/her portfolio actively, then one should pledge to outsource funds to a professional fund manager, who has a proven track record of delivering superior market returns, or invest in index ETF that tracks the relevant benchmarks to ensure that one is aligned with overall market performance and benefits from its growth.

Recently, in a ground-breaking initiative in the Indian capital markets, through a first-of-its-kind offering in India, investors and traders have been empowered by SAMCO Securities to measure their stock market performance through their Personal Index (PI). We launched next-gen Capital Resource Planning (CRP) trading platform on the web and app, backed by proprietary MyDex Technology. PI is one of the innovative features of SAMCO’s CRP Platform which is embedded with trading and will empower Indian investors and traders to enhance their investment performance and beat the market benchmark returns.

Through Personal Index, it is actually for the first-time, retail investors will have their Time Weighted Rate of Return (TWRR) at their fingertips. TWRR is most widely accepted method of calculating personal rate of return by Fund Managers, institutional investors and even Regulators. Until now, TWRR was a complex and time-consuming process that was only available to institutional investors such as Mutual Funds (MFs) and Portfolio Management Schemes (PMS) providers. These institutional investors also outsource this computation to multiple agencies like Custodian, RTA, and Fund Accountant. With the availability of Personal Index now, retail investors will be able to measure their performance with ease and accuracy for the first time, that too for free,to all the investors on SAMCO’s CRP Platform.

As I said earlier, we’ll continue our endeavor to empower Indian retail investors through our product innovation backed by Technology.

Q4. Exciting times ahead for business leaders like you because of the way technology has evolved and the way Hi-Tech solutions are available today; Do you think building business at scale has become relatively easier?How are you leveraging technology in your businesses?

A4. Our mission at SAMCO is to provide retail investors access to sophisticated financial technology that can assist in creating wealth to retail investors at low-cost. Today SAMCO provides some of the most unique margin products to enable our customers to make the most efficient use of their capital. We are striving hard to ensure the problems that the trading and investing industry is plagued with are solved and low-cost access to capital markets is available for every Indian investor.

Q5. What will be your top business priorities for next two years and five years?

A5: Our top priority for the next two to five years will be to continue to add value to the customers, keep innovating new products and features to our products to help our investors to become more successful in the capital market and scale the business. We currently operate in three verticals; we are into the business of securities as SAMCO Securities, in the mutual fund sector as SAMCO MF and into wealth creation and MF distribution through Rank MF. As on today, we are at an annual revenue run rate of about Rs 100-110 crores, we hope to take that to over Rs 500 crore in next few years.

Q6. Our readers would like to know that as a successful Business leader what is your mantra for success?

A6: I think keep working hard and make genuine efforts to keep solving problems. That is the single-core mantra for success.

Q7. What would be your advice to youngsters who have a dream to become a successful entrepreneur like you?

A7: My advice to the young generation will be that don’t be an entrepreneur just for sake of it. Your first objective to become an entrepreneur should be that you should be passionate about the problem you want to solve, either by providing a service or the product to that problem. And once you have identified what problem you want to solve, then you can create business around it and be an entrepreneur. As currently, the term Entrepreneurship in trending, there is no point in becoming an entrepreneurwithout any underline core to solve a business problem. 

Q8. While you yourself are role model for many, however, who are your role models or business leaders who have inspired you over the period of time?

A8: There are various role models and business leaders who have inspired us over time. Some of the Tech-inspirational leaders are obviously the legendary Steve Jobs of Apple and another great business leader in the name of Warren Buffet, the legendary investment guru. Among the current business leaders who are active today, I admire Satya Nadella of Microsoft, quiet a lot. In India, if you look at Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Group has inspired us quiet a lot.

(Disclaimer: The above view are that of author and not of website or its management)