Mr. Husaini Kanchwala,
Head - Product - Investments. NJ Group
Husaini Kanchwala is the Product Head for Investments, having been a part of sales earlier. With an experience over 15+ years in the financial services industry, Husaini is responsible for investment product promotions and tie-ups with manufacturers.
Let's start with a Poll.
- Would you be open to taking more loans post lockdown?
- Would you like to go out for a trip to mall for watching a movie/eating in a restaurant post lockdown?
- Would you prefer spending more time in office for work than working from home?
- Do you think you will be interested in buying a new car or house this year or will defer the purchase?
- Would you like to buy/upgrade your mobile/laptop/tab/wifi connection post lockdown ?
Are your answers to the first 4 Qs is a No and a Yes to the last?
Well, you are not alone. Many advisors, investors, I am talking to are feeling the same way.
1. In the current scenario, people having high debts are badly stuck. Be it loan for business or car loan or home loan. In businesses, revenues are down and at a personal level salaries are also down. But in both cases, EMI, interest, loan repayments still continue. People with lower liabilities are much better off today and are sleeping peacefully.
Going forward, people might work towards lowering their debt and learn to stay within their means as we are doing now. Big impact is expected on housing sales, car sales!!
Can this lead to a much lower (and attractive) interest rate scenario in the future? With lower credit off take, will rates on bank deposits nosedive? Lets wait and watch.
2. Gulabo Sitabo, a movie featuring Ayushmann Khurana and Amitabh Bachchan, will be releasing digitally on Amazon Prime on 12th June. Many other regional movies are releasing digitally on Amazon Prime, Zee5, Netflix etc., rather than in theatres. '83, a movie on India's victory of 1983 world cup featuring Ranveer Singh, is being negotiated for online release at a price of Rs. 150 cr!!
Can you see the signs? What's the future of multiplexes then? Fingers crossed.
3. TCS recently announced moving 75% of its workforce to work from home (WFH) in few years. TCS employs 4.50 Lac people. So, that's roughly 3.50 lac people WFH. That means huge empty office spaces? Is TCS alone? Nope. Many other big names, Cognizant, Accenture, PwC, Deloitte, are moving in the same direction. Not only are they shifting to WFH, they are also negotiating 30-40% reduction in their rentals!!
What happens to commercial real estate? Will prices crash? How long will builders hold on to the prices? Rents, a better indicator of the market, have already started falling.
Restaurants are shifting towards home deliveries to stay afloat. Rentals are the highest business cost for them. Just check Swiggy/Zomato on your phone. If restaurants are going to derive more income from food delivery, do they really need to be present in malls? Good food can be made and delivered anywhere.
Large employers, multiplexes, restaurants are going out of business. Alarm bells for commercial real estate sector, everywhere! Even in our business, with transactions moving online, RTA offices might become redundant and forced to shut shop at many locations.
How about residential real estate? With salary cuts, economic slow down, high expectations of price fall, don't know how many people will stick their neck out to buy property. Certainly not investors, consumers may be. Fingers crossed, again.
4. With deluge of webinars, be it from schools and offices, from education to entertainment, everything has moved online. Schools don't seem to reopen soon. We surely need more laptops at home. Mobiles are needed with high storage and battery too! Need of the hour is to move to better broadband connections or a higher monthly data pack to manage this all!
For businesses too, more digital investments is a no brainer. From better websites to a good social media profile or making your goods available online, big digital shift is coming our way.
Savings on realty will translate into spends on IT. More IT jobs coming our way, with all companies and individuals exploring online options and tools for doing business!
What else we might rush to buy? Probably Roti makers or Dishwashers or Robotic Vacuum cleaners. All these products are available online on Amazon. Ranging from Rs.2,000-40,000!
In the movie Jurassic Park, there's a dialogue, “Life finds a way”. So true it is. All of these changes are happening so fast, in front of our eyes. Three months back we couldn't even have imagined about something like this, but today we are an integral part of this change. In many ways we have already adapted to the change, for some things we are still confused! The world is going to be a different place, or it is a different place already. Rather than sticking to old school, this new world is also full of opportunities to grow. It's better to change with the change, rather than curse the situation. It's on us, whether we want to see the glass half empty or half full.