Aditya Birla Money: A saga of wrong bets, losses and damage control  

October 21, 2010

Brokerage firm Aditya Birla Money’s fancy scheme for the rich incurred heavy losses amid wrong bets. It has required intervention from the very top to set things right  

In the high stakes game of wealth management, where revenue generation usually takes precedence over client welfare, all it takes is a few overzealous people to run a portfolio to the ground. Aditya Birla Money, a financial services firm, discovered this the hard way recently, when a fancy scheme tailored for individuals with deep pockets ran into heavy losses apparently due to wrong and slipshod bets. However, Moneylife learns through informed sources that Kumar Mangalam Birla personally intervened to ensure there were no losses to the investors.

The scheme, Options Maxima, involved trading in equity options where fund managers either short sold Nifty and bought options or did it the other way, a person familiar with the development told Moneylife. The scheme promised returns of around 1%-1.5% every month based on the arbitrage opportunities through this activity, which ensured what was considered a very fair 12%-15% return annually. The managers, however, made wrong calls on the movement of the index and stocks.

Narrating this incident, our source told us, “They (Aditya Birla Money) used to run something called Options Maxima involving covered calls where one short sells Nifty and buys options or the other way around, whereby there is a small arbitrage opportunity. Every month it offered 1%-1.5%, translating into annual returns of 12%-15%. It was aggressively marketed as a risk-free investment in various presentations. Suddenly in September when the market went up this manager based out of Chennai short sold Nifty and bought options, resulting in a huge loss.”

The resulting losses supposedly amounting to a sizeable sum of nearly Rs100 crore caused panic in the company. Sources say that Kumar Mangalam Birla personally inspected the books of the company at its office and was there very late into the night. We have learnt that the Birla group has written cheques to make good the losses through a private group entity. But such a blunder could not go unpunished. The buck had stopped at Kanwar Vivek, managing director of Aditya Birla Money, who apparently put in his papers. Pankaj Razdan, deputy chief executive, financial services, Aditya Birla Group had roped in Mr Vivek a while ago. We have now learnt that this incident has also put Mr Razdan under considerable pressure. However, company sources deny any talks of him leaving the company.

An Aditya Birla Group spokesperson declined to reveal more details regarding this sensitive issue as the listed company is slated to come out with its quarterly performance figures early next week. However he did mention that most of the reports in the media were purely speculation, including the estimates of the loss incurred by the scheme. “As a company policy, we do not comment on speculation,” said the spokesperson.

At a time when the group is intent on making significant strides in several of its new-generation businesses, Mr Birla would surely like to put this incident behind him. Financial services forms a big part of the group’s plans and has contributed 37% to the FY 2009-10 consolidated revenue of Aditya Birla Nuvo, the holding company. Mr Birla is infusing more cash into businesses like financial services and telecom through Nuvo and enhancing his own stake in the process. Aditya Birla Financial Services is, in fact, intent on launching banking services provided the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gives it a banking license. — Moneylife Digital Team