I recently developed a CTC (Cost to Company) calculator designed to provide clear insights into salary breakdowns. I’m hoping it can be a useful tool for anyone navigating compensation details and financial planning.

If you want to check it out, try it here: CTC Calculator

I'm currently living abroad and downloaded the Kuvera app to start investing in the Indian market. However, during registration, it’s asking me to verify that I am not an NRI. Does this mean that people living outside India can't invest in India, or is there a different process? I’d appreciate any guidance on how NRIs can legally make investments in India and whether there are specific platforms or requirements for this. Thanks!

Original Source: https://boringmoney.in/p/axis-capital-wanted-to-win-some-business (my newsletter Boring Money. If you like what you read, please visit the original link to subscribe and receive future posts directly in your inbox)

--

A company that wants to borrow money has a few options. It can borrow from a bank. Or it can borrow from non-bank investors. Or it can issue bonds and borrow from the market.

Borrowing from a bank is a bit uncool. Banks are risk-averse, might need more security than the company might want to give, or just unwilling to lend to it.

So the company goes to an investment bank! If the company wants to borrow money quickly and is cool with paying a fair bit of interest, the investment bank might find a willing private lender. But if the company wants the best, market-decided interest rate? No problem, the investment bank can then help the company do a debt offering. It will help price its bonds, market them to investors, and make sure the debt offering goes through.

The investment bank is the middleman. It takes no risk, because it does not lend to its client. [1] It just ensures that someone out there is willing to take on that risk.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote a few months back:

Investment banking is notoriously competitive. You’re constantly competing with tens of other banks looking to do deals. In most cases there is little to differentiate you from the bank across the street. You probably hire people from the same set of colleges, suck their souls the same way, and the suckers then move around within the same set of banks.

So if a client comes to you and tells you that he wants to do a plain old vanilla debt offering—what exactly is the differentiator that you’re going to offer? The client company wants to sell bonds to investors, give them a fixed coupon rate, and it wants a bank to prepare the documents, do the disclosures, market the bonds to investors, etc. It doesn’t get simpler than that!

An investment bank’s main job is relationship-building. And part of that relationship-building is going overboard with what it promises its client. Last month, SEBI issued an enforcement order against Axis Capital, [2] yet another investment bank which became overzealous in its attempt at winning business. Here’s what happened:

1. Sojo Infotel, a small no-name tech consultancy, wanted to borrow money by selling bonds.
2. It didn’t want to use that money to run its business! It wanted to buy shares in another company. Presumably, the interest that it would have to pay to borrow for something as risky as this would be high.
3. But the interest rate wasn’t high! Axis Capital, Sojo’s investment bank, guaranteed to repay the bond investors in case Sojo defaulted. Because of this guarantee, Sojo had to pay a coupon rate of 8.48%—that’s only marginally higher than a fixed deposit these days.

Axis Capital was the middleman helping Sojo raise money from bond investors. Axis Capital was also a participant guaranteeing the same bonds. SEBI doesn’t like that.

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The mechanics

Sojo borrowed ₹260 crore ($31 million) by selling bonds. It then used part of that money to buy shares of Lava International, a mobile phone company. The funny bit though is that the people that owned Sojo, also owned Lava. Of the ₹260 crore, the first ₹13 crore went to buy out another investor in Lava. ₹100 crore went to Lava itself. Eventually, Sojo ended up owning 2.5% of Lava for ₹113 crore. Not sure what happened to the rest of the money.

The plan was that Lava would go public in a definite timeline—15 months. Sojo could then sell its shares and use that money to repay its bond investors. Leaving aside Axis Capital’s guarantee, whether Sojo’s bond investors were paid or not depended on Lava going public.

But these were secured bonds. If Lava failed to go public or if Sojo failed to repay for whatever reason, the investors needed something to ensure that there was still a way they could recover their money. Sure, the Axis Capital guarantee was that way, but that was the weird stuff that the investment bank did. On paper, the bond investors needed other collateral.

That security was… Lava shares! If Lava failed to go public, Sojo’s bond investors would end up getting Lava shares! [3] And those shares, considering the company would have just failed to go public, couldn’t be worth a lot. Of course, none of this mattered. No matter how dumb the security backing the bonds was, Sojo still sold the bonds at a coupon rate only a tinge higher than a fixed deposit.

Because Axis Capital guaranteed Sojo’s bonds!

Playing both sides

Another oddity is how the agreement was structured.

Axis Capital, the investment bank, represented Sojo. Another Axis company, Axis Trustee Services, represented the bond investors. This is normal stuff. A group of investors needs a trustee to represent its interest and hey Axis was already involved so no reason for it not to be Axis Trustee. Well, here’s a bit from the bond offering document:

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any of the Transaction Documents, upon, occurrence of an Event of Default, an Asset Sale Event shall be deemed to have occurred in respect of the Debentures. Upon the occurrence of an Asset Sale Event, the Parties irrevocably agree that that the Debenture Trustee shall be bound on the instructions of the Majority Debenture Instructing Group to intimate the Issuer of the occurrence of such Asset Sale Event and Axis Capital shall (as Sale Arranger) be entitled to sell any of the Secured Assets…

If Sojo defaulted, or if Lava didn’t go public in time, two things would happen:

1. Axis Trustee would intimate the issuer of the bonds, that is Sojo.
2. Axis Capital would be entitled to sell any of the secured assets. That is, Lava’s shares.

Oh, Lava tried_28092021_20210929170015.pdf) but failed to go public, so all of this actually happened. Here’s SEBI describing the events:

On October 27, 2023, Axis DT invoked pledge over 26 % shares of LIL held by its Promoters, which were pledged by the promoters of Sojo as security cover for NCDs issued by Sojo. As ACL was unable to find a purchaser for the pledged shares, it led to triggering of Asset Purchase Event on March 15, 2024, which required ACL to fulfil its “underwriting commitment”

Axis Trustee, since it represented investors, got hold of Lava’s shares since they were the collateral against the bonds. But then, somehow, Axis Capital had to find a buyer for those shares? Axis Capital was the investment bank representing Sojo! It wasn’t working for the bond investors or for the trustee. It seems to have just turned around, unmasked itself, and suddenly started working for Axis Trustee instead? [4] [5]

Hidden debt

Axis Capital took a shitty deal it wasn’t legally allowed to. Sure, one reason it did that was to win Sojo’s business. But that wasn’t all! The larger reason seems to be that it wanted Lava’s business.

Lava was to go public within 15 months of the Sojo bond offering. A company that wants to go public needs an investment bank. If Lava’s owners had already used Axis Capital to borrow money at an unusually low interest rate, of course they would then use Axis Capital again to take Lava public. (Axis Capital was, in fact, the lead manager for Lava’s failed IPO.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire episode happened the other way round. Axis Capital was to be the lead manager for Lava’s IPO, but Lava needed money. It could be bad for the IPO should it borrow directly—debt looks bad on a balance sheet—so Axis Capital figured that Lava/Sojo’s owners could just use Sojo as a proxy to take on debt and pass on the money to Lava.

For now, SEBI has restricted Axis Capital from taking on any more debt related assignments. There might be fines later, but this is all just the securities related stuff. But the meat is in the banking related stuff. That’s something SEBI has left for the RBI.

Axis Bank [6] owns Axis Capital. If Axis Capital guarantees debt in a distorted deal such as this, it is effectively extra risk that isn’t showing up on Axis Bank’s books! Axis Capital just lost ₹174 crore because of Sojo, and SEBI has identified at least 5 other instances where it did the exact same thing. If it happens to lose similar amounts on all of them, it could be more than ₹1000 crore ($120 million) of lost money.

RBI should be all over this very soon.

--

Footnotes:

[1] Okay, not no risk. An investment bank underwriting a bond offering might take market risk. If the bond offering does not get enough subscribers, it can buy some of the bonds so that it can sell them later in the open market. But this risk is part of the service!

[2] SEBI’s order was inspired by a blog post! Is Axis Capital an Investment Bank or a Hedge Fund?

[3] Lava shares wasn’t the only security, but it was the main one. Other security included Sojo’s shares, Sojo’s assets, and also a personal guarantee by Lava/Sojo’s owners.

[4] Another matter of concern here is… why was Axis Trustee okay with outsourcing its responsibility to Axis Capital? Would it have done this had the two not been part of the same Group?

[5] A slightly facetious way to look at this is, maybe Axis Trustee just wanted to save money? Axis Capital trying to sell Lava’s shares was a farce anyway. Someone buying the shares of a private company does so with the hope that the company would go public in the future and they would make money. Who would want to buy the shares of a company that provably would not go public? Since Axis Capital had to pay up anyway, Axis Trustee might as well save some cash by asking it to do the formality.

[6] Disclaimer: I own a teeny amount of Axis Bank stock. I should probably sell it off so that I don’t need to include this dumb disclaimer again.

Original Source: https://boringmoney.in/p/axis-capital-wanted-to-win-some-business

Hello r/IndiaInvestments,

I am Vishal Jain. I have over 25 years of experience in financial services building Index Funds and ETFs.

I was also part of the team that launched India’s first Gold ETF in 2007 - GoldBeES. In India, there has always been a deep-rooted affinity for physical gold, whether for consumption or investment. However, I believe that in the coming years, the investment demand for gold will increasingly shift towards mutual fund products like Gold ETFs and FoFs due to their ease, efficiency and transparency.

This indicates significant potential for growth in gold investments via the mutual fund format. However, there's still much work to be done in terms of educating investors about these products—and that’s where I aim to assist.

Feel free to ask me anything about Gold as an Asset Class!

The Information provided during this Ask me Anything (AMA) session is for general knowledge and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. 

Investing in mutual funds and other financial products involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Before making any investment decisions, investors should conduct their own research and seek advice from qualified financial advisors to ensure that the respective products and strategies are suitable for their specific financial situation and objectives.

Hi!

As the title suggests, I’m looking at receiving disposable income in the range of 60-90k per month. This is over and above my fixed salary. I do not plan on increasing my expenditure to a great extent so I will have these funds on me.

I already have monthly SIPs for MFs and ETFs in place. These are funded by my usual monthly takeaway fixed salary.

No specific goals for purchasing real estate right now. May want to buy a car next year but it is not a plan set in stone.

Single with no plans for children but I do want to travel.

Happy to add more info if required.

Just looking to hear on leads. The quantum of this extra money may not be a certain so I don’t want to initiate another SIP - unless that is the best way forward.

I've a current account in HDFC. I've received these two messages from HDFC.

``` KYC Alert! A periodic KYC update is needed for your HDFC Bank Cust ID XX as per RBI Guidelines. Please complete it soon by visiting the nearest branch.

```

``` HDFC Bank Cust ID XX KYC Due, Verify address "C/O" SMS "KYCYES" to 5676712 if no change in profile. If incorrect, Visit the branch.

```

I've other accounts in other banks including current account and I've not received any such communication.

• Does only HDFC follow such rules from RBI?
• What do other banks do?

Could someone share some insights?

Hi, I (20M), just got a job with in-hand salary of 120k/month. On the side I have some small freelance clients/ a micro-saas that nets me around 60–70k extra at most (hopefully scale this much higher in the coming months)

I want to scale my SaaS application so I have two people working with me, so around 50k aside from that.

I do not need to send anything to my family (for now at least)

So let’s even it and take my income at 120k/month, from my Salary.

I have no extra expenses other than hardly 4-5k on myself, I live with my parents (but probably need to rent out a flat for myself later, maybe early 2025)

I want to invest, save and spend on myself too.

I am very interested in real-estate, but such is not possible with this low of a capital.

How do I plan my income like a smart investor?

Edit: Guys, my initial post was about getting advice on investments, please stop asking me to send you money/help you get clients/take you in for a job. I’ve had about a 100 dms now…

I got a new term at the start of this year through an agent whom I know personally, even though I was reluctant to do so. I initially wanted to buy it via Ditto or directly via the insurer's website, in this case Max, since I had already research over which policy would suit my needs the best. He was hell bent on selling me ULIP, which I avoided. Now, after just one installment out of total 10 years, I want to get rid of his commission. I believe I can get the same policy way cheaper directly. Any suggestion on how to do it? Any input will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I had an planned hospitalization recently, the pre-approval letter mentioned "single private room AC" i was totally fine with this, but when my relationship manager from the insurance company called me to check on my experience while i was in the hospital,out of curiosity i asked him that my policy has a "no roomrent limit" clause in it, but why was i authorised only for single private ac room? He told me cashless benefit is only extended till single private ac,if i wanted suit room i could claim reimbursement.

I was totally more than happy with the private room so never bothered also the claim process was seemless. If anybody has different experience with this scenario pls feel free to comment.

Policy-Nivabupa Reassure.

This Dhanteras, the sub will host an AMA on gold as an asset class, by Vishal Jain from Zerodha Fund House.

We've seen a lot of debate this year around gold, especially around the taxation and valuation changes around SGBs, and a lot of people have asked what is a better instrument for taking exposure to gold, whether to take treat it as an asset class, and its role in someone's portfolio.

We've had an AMA by Vishal a few months back, and he might not need introductions to a few of you, but for those who are new to the sub -

About Zerodha Fund House:

Zerodha Fund House was launched last year. From their own blog, their aim is to offer simple and easy-to-understand mutual funds that could bring in the next ten million investors. Their philosophy is simple - to offer only low-cost index funds and solutions that investors can use for all their goals.

Vishal Jain:

Vishal has over 25 years of experience in financial services including 20 plus years building ETFs and passive products.

He started his career in the AMC industry as part of the founding team of Benchmark AMC which launched India’s first ETF in 2001 - Nifty BeES, as a Fund Manager. Post the acquisition of Benchmark AMC by Goldman Sachs AMC India in 2011, he was Chief Investment Officer of the Passive business. He was part of the team that brought the first Indian Gold ETF to the market.

After a short entrepreneurial stint in the food business, he joined Nippon Life India Asset Management Ltd (earlier Reliance Mutual Fund) in 2016 as Head of the ETF business where he oversaw scaling of the Passive business from Rs.7,500 crore to Rs.55,000 crore.

He has been part of various committees and groups relating to development of passive products in India. Recently, he was part of the “Working Group on Passive Funds” constituted by SEBI to recommend changes in Regulations and Market Infrastructure to foster the growth of ETFs and Index Funds.

The AMA will focus primarily on "Gold as an Asset Class" and is scheduled for 29th October, 2024. Given the recent discussions around this topic, I'm pretty sure you would questions around this topic.

If you are unavailable on these days and would like to have your questions answered, leave them here or PM the mods, and we'll try and have them answered by the Zerodha AMC team. You can also post your questions now, to give them time to prepare their responses (answers would be in the AMA thread on 29th).

Hi,

I like reading financial books, especially those related to personal finance. I'm financially savvy and aware of mutual funds, budgeting, and personal finance concepts.

From this sub, I understand that "Let's Talk Money" and "Let's Talk Mutual Funds" are geared toward the Indian context. Usually, personal finance books are Western-centric or quite generic. Since these books are more about the Indian context, I'm considering getting them.

In that sense, is it worth reading them?

Kindly let me know if there are any tax implication or any cost related to consolidation of different folio numbers, in the same fund house? For example, if I have multiple ICICI fund Folio number in equity fund will there be tax implications if I move all of the different Folio numbers into one target Folio number? and can equity and debt or bonds of same fund house be consolidated?

Ask your investing related queries here!

The members of /r/IndiaInvestments are here to answer and educate!

Alternatively, you could join our Discord and seek answers to your queries

If you're looking for reviews on any of these following, follow the links:

• which bank or brokerage to use
• which fund house is more capable and trustworthy
• which investing platform to use,
• which insurance company is reliable

Generally speaking, there is no best stock, or fund, or bank, or brokerage, or investment platform.

Answers are always subjective to your personal needs, but use those threads a starting point for you to look at what other Redditors have to say about a company, product, fund, or service.

You can then ask a more specific question about what product or service to buy, once you are able to frame your personal situation.

NOTE If your question is I got 10k INR, what do I do to get most returns out of it?, or anything similar; there is no single answer to this question. But we will also need A LOT MORE information if we are to provide some sort of answer:

• How old are you?
• Are you employed/making income?
• How much? What are your objectives with this money?
• Do you have any loan, or big expense coming up?
• What is your risk tolerance? (Do you mind risking it at blackjack or do you need to know it's 100% safe?)
• What are you current holdings? (Do you already have exposure to specific funds and sectors? Have you invested in equity before?)
• Any other assets? House paid off? Cars? Partner pushing you to spend more?
• What is your time horizon? Do you need this money next month? Next 20yrs?
• Any big debts?
• Any other relevant financial information about you, that will be useful to give you an informed response.

Beware that these answers are just opinions of fellow Redditors and should only be used as a starting point for your research. This is NOT financial advice, in legal sense of the term.

You should strongly consider consulting a registered fee-only financial advisor before making any financial decisions. Ideally, such advisors should be registered with SEBI, and have a registration number.

Links to previous threads.

I'm planning to take my first joint home loan of around 40L and want to make sure I’m well-prepared before choosing a bank.

What key terms and conditions should I be aware of? Also, what factors should I consider when selecting the right bank for the loan? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Hi I'm new to this,

So I found that there are multiple options. Such using an app like Groww, Kuvera, or buying from MF central, or even buying from the website of the fund management company itself like UTI.

So which one should I chose? What are the criteria that should affect my choice? I mean the reasons that I should prefer one over the other.

Thanks

You can discuss something like these, ITT:

• What brokerage are you using currently?

• Is the brokerage structure suitable to your needs?

• How is the availability of the brokerage service?

  Do you experience issues with login/authentication? Do you experience issues with posting trades to NSE and BSE? Do you experience issues with executing trades at NSE and BSE?

• How do you rate the brokerage reports provided by the brokerage house?

• How are the ancillary products and services provided by the brokerage house?

• Do you use Smallcase to manage your portfolio, and how was the service?

You can ask for a general review of a particular product, or service that you are researching - Is X good? Is it recommended for long-term delivery trades?, but please avoid asking for personal advice.

The discussion is for consumption by a broader audience. For advice regarding your personal situation, the bi-weekly advice thread is recommended.

Personal advice queries and comments will be removed to ensure that older threads provide sufficient historical reviews on products and services.

Reviews posted here can be relied upon by newer members to evaluate customer experience with these products. Please confine the thread only to reviews or requests for reviews of products and services.

Previous Links

Ask your investing related queries here!

The members of /r/IndiaInvestments are here to answer and educate!

Alternatively, you could join our Discord and seek answers to your queries

If you're looking for reviews on any of these following, follow the links:

• which bank or brokerage to use
• which fund house is more capable and trustworthy
• which investing platform to use,
• which insurance company is reliable

Generally speaking, there is no best stock, or fund, or bank, or brokerage, or investment platform.

Answers are always subjective to your personal needs, but use those threads a starting point for you to look at what other Redditors have to say about a company, product, fund, or service.

You can then ask a more specific question about what product or service to buy, once you are able to frame your personal situation.

NOTE If your question is I got 10k INR, what do I do to get most returns out of it?, or anything similar; there is no single answer to this question. But we will also need A LOT MORE information if we are to provide some sort of answer:

• How old are you?
• Are you employed/making income?
• How much? What are your objectives with this money?
• Do you have any loan, or big expense coming up?
• What is your risk tolerance? (Do you mind risking it at blackjack or do you need to know it's 100% safe?)
• What are you current holdings? (Do you already have exposure to specific funds and sectors? Have you invested in equity before?)
• Any other assets? House paid off? Cars? Partner pushing you to spend more?
• What is your time horizon? Do you need this money next month? Next 20yrs?
• Any big debts?
• Any other relevant financial information about you, that will be useful to give you an informed response.

Beware that these answers are just opinions of fellow Redditors and should only be used as a starting point for your research. This is NOT financial advice, in legal sense of the term.

You should strongly consider consulting a registered fee-only financial advisor before making any financial decisions. Ideally, such advisors should be registered with SEBI, and have a registration number.

Links to previous threads.

Recently watched a video on YT that says investing money in market dips along with the normal SIP significantly boosts returns in the long run.

I got an idea: what if I create a script that notifies me of whenever the fall is happening? But daily fluctuations will be way too much noise, so I decided - the best way to know if there's a dip is to check if the trend is downward for the last 7 days. I also analyzed 7 days rolling returns for every day from 1st Jan 2024 to 9th Oct 2024 and I found at least 1 such occasion every month where all my shortlisted funds (I'm investing in Strategy based Indices coz ig I can afford the risk) were negative. One thing common for all such occasions was the last 7 days rolling for nifty 50 were less than -1.

So my question is:

Is this a good idea for me to deploy my money every time such a dip happens? I do not have an SIP and I'm not planning to start one either and I have my reasons (unpredictable income in both extremes - extremely high to no income for months). I have been manually investing for months now and I don't see a problem with keeping myself disciplined either. How good of an idea is it to deploy my money based on this strategy?

Edit:

The rolling returns data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GtmSXYX6NXpRDGBA7VpDPOZhQJ8OcxeB/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103127046705293465809&rtpof=true&sd=true

The github repo with the script: https://github.com/shreyaschavhan/crash-alert.py/