How StanChart's Jain Built Corpus 40 Times His Expenses in 25 Years

His portfolio is 63% in equities and 35% in debt, mostly via mutual funds, stocks, PPF and EPF, with little churn

- Neil Borate & Jash Kriplani

Saurabh Jain, 48, managing director and Head - Wealth Management and Affluent Client Segments at Standard Chartered Bank, has spent over two decades in banking. Despite managing complex investment products and strategies professionally, Jain keeps his personal investing approach simple.

All his equity investments are in publicly listed, open-ended instruments. He avoids sectoral, thematic, or style-based bets. His portfolio comprises 8-10 mutual fund schemes diversified across categories and market capitalizations, left untouched for years to compound tax-free. He has also strategically maxed out Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Public Provident Fund (PPF) contributions in the past. In an interview with Mint, Jain shares his investment journey and philosophy. Edited excerpts:

Lessons from your childhood?

My father was extremely organized with his personal finances. He maintained a file for every financial year, with neatly arranged records going back decades. He updated them methodically every week. When he passed in January 2022, his files were up to date till December 2021.

Another incident had a lasting impact. As a child, I once bought fruit and told the vendor I'd pay later. My father was furious and told me never to borrow. He taught me: "jitni chadar ho utna hi pair pasaro (live within your means and avoid leverage)".

Tell us about your career and investing journey

I started as a management trainee with ITC Ltd in Kolkata in 2000, then moved to Citi in 2003. In the early years, I had minimal expenses as I lived with my parents, so I had a decent investible surplus. Still, I only began investing in equities in 2005. In hindsight, I should have started earlier.

Your portfolio allocation?

It's split into 63% equity, 35% debt, and 2% cash. Within equity, 82% is in mutual funds and 18% in direct stocks. Most of the debt exposure is in EPF, with some in PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana for my daughter.