Avinash Luthria

Hourly-Fee Financial Planner & SEBI Registered Investment Adviser

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The only Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India with prior investment experience and a top MBA

  • The first Hourly-Fee Financial Planner in India and the second Hourly-Fee Financial Planner in the World
    • 'Hourly-Fee' is defined here
    • Hourly-Fees are the gold-standard in transparency 
    • Followed this approach from my very first client
    • There are only 6 Hourly-Fee Financial Planners in India
  • The only Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India with prior investment work-experience 
  • The only Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India with a two-year, full-time (i.e. flagship course) MBA from a top-3 (or even top-4) IIM
  • The only Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India to recommend only Passive Index Funds
    • Passive Index Funds includes broad-market Index Funds such as the Nifty 50 Index Fund and the US S&P500 Index Fund etc. Passive Index Funds excludes Smart-Beta / Factor Funds and other such 'Active' investment approaches that pretend to be a 'Passive' investment approach
    • Followed this approach from my very first client
  • First Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India to explain and use a conservative Zero-Real-Returns approach to financial planning
    • Followed this approach from my very first client
  • Joint-First Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India to use the Customized (10+ hours of effort with new clients) process which is the opposite of the (3-hours of effort with new clients) Robo++ Process 
    • Followed this approach from my very first client
  • First Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIA in India to explain and use the risk-averse insight that equity is risky even in the long term
    • Followed this approach from my very first client
  • Among the first-ten Hourly-Fee / Fixed-Fee RIAs in India

Experience

  • Investor with 21 years of experience including 12 years as a Private Equity / Venture Capital investor
    • Previously, a decade as a Partner and one of the five members of the founding team at a top 5-10 independent Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital fund (that fund has Assets Under Management of USD 400+ million ; Rs 2,800+ crore)
  • SEBI Registered Investment Adviser (RIA; registration number INA200011125)
  • This registration mandates that RIAs follow a Fee-Only Investment Advisory revenue model and where the RIA is a fiduciary i.e.
    • RIAs should put the client’s interest ahead of his own interests
    • RIAs owes the client reasonable duty of care 
    • The spirit of this regulation is that RIAs should provide the service as a profession and not as a business
    • SEBI regulations do not require an hourly fee. However being a true fiduciary requires it
    • This can be seen from the fact that other fiduciaries such as doctors and lawyers charge their clients an hourly fee

Education

  • Two-year, full-time (i.e. the flagship course) MBA from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), focusing on Finance & Strategy (2000-2002)
  • Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
  • Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science & Engineering) from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore

Further details

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