Why this RIA prefers to serve customers from rural Maharashtra

After the strike in 1987–89, Sawant’s family moved to Sangli following the closure of the tire factory where his father worked. It was in Sangli where his father did farming and where Sawant grew up. “I learned to be street smart in Sangli. Rural schools toughen you up,” he said.

His family had an early brush with finance: Sawant’s father ran an informal savings scheme for his co-workers. When the tire factory closed, all the participants in the scheme lost their jobs and it collapsed. as the organizer of the scheme (called bishi in Marathi), Sawant’s father had to pay the bill and it wiped out his savings.

After his schooling in Sangli, Sawant did his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and took up his first job in the back office of a US-focused wealth manager in Pune. He didn’t like the job. “The job was mechanical. The initiative was not expected or encouraged,” he said.

In 2010, Sawant moved to Sangli and tried his hand at broking, which was not a business. He noticed that clients were coming to his office only for implementation and not for advice. Many people wanted to make fast money by trading in equity and commodity markets. Sawant decided to switch sides. He completed his CFP certification and started selling financial planning as a B2B service to distributors in rural Maharashtra. This business died out in 2013 after SEBI implemented the Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) regulations. Sawant then decided to apply for an investment advisor license—a corporate one—as he had ambitions to set up a bigger business. He founded NS Wealth in 2014.

In the decade that followed, Sawant saw a few ups and downs. Friction was high. Employees were often under-qualified or lacking in initiative. But he overcame these challenges and built a stable practice. Today, Sawant serves around 140 families in and around Sangli and Pune. Doctors are his niche clientele and he also focuses on NRIs. “My clients have a net worth of approx. from 30 lakhs 4 crores. I don’t focus on the very rich. Many of these rural people will become richer over time and I want to be there from the start of their careers.”

Having spent most of his life in rural Maharashtra, Sawant understands the psychology of small town people. “Chit funds and scams flourish in small towns. People invest in real estate mainly without understanding the cost. I asked a client what return he would get on a house that doubles in value in 10 years – I got the answer 100%. There is no sense of CAGR,” he says. However, Sawant is not satisfied with a traditional RIA practice. Developed an app- OMS Money that creates and executes financial plans. Advice through automation and virtually over video calls It is in its initial stages. I plan to raise money and scale it up,” he says. Today Sawant’s practice includes assets of approx. 90 crores. It comes down to average portfolio size 64 lakhs, which is much less than the amount usually managed by Mumbai based RIs. However, Sawant sees his clients as the wealth creators of tomorrow and is ready to ‘get on top of them early’.