Centrum unveils expansion plans

To capitalise on the current boom in the capital market and investment trends, financial services provider Centrum is planning to expand in the northern region by opening around 20 branches.

At present, it has 13 branches. Centrum provides advisory and financial solutions in the areas of fund raising, infrastructure development, government borrowing, corporate restructuring and money market intermediation.

At the retail level, Centrum provides investment advisory service and distributes financial products like mutual funds, insurance products, etc.

The company also plans to start its share trading and brokerage services in the next two months in the region. Currently, these services are not provided in its branches in the region.

Talking to Business Standard, Manmeet Sawhney, regional manager, Centrum Direct Ltd, said, "Currently, we have 13 branches in the north, including five in Delhi. In Punjab, we have branches at Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar and we plan to increase our presence in Punjab by opening branches in Amritsar and Pathankot also. In Himachal Pradesh, we are looking at the option of opening a branch either at Shimla or Mandi. Apart from the above, we have three branches in Rajasthan and one each in UP and MP. So far, we have a large presence with over 30 branches in the major cities of the southern and western states."

He said, "We plan to increase our presence to about 20 branches in the region this fiscal. We have 46 branches across India and we plan to increase our presence to about 70 by the end of this fiscal. We don't need to have a branch in all the cities as our single branch caters to an area of over a radius of 50 km."

Centrum Direct Ltd is the foreign exchange, insurance and retail distribution business arm of Centrum Capital Ltd.

"The northern market is no longer the same. There is a huge activity going on even in the small districts.We believe that it is no longer which city you are in. In fact, the focus now is on which centre in a particular city. This calls for greater focus in expanding and offering services at the doorstep of a customer," he said.

"Our share brokering and trading services are currently not available to the customers in the north. However, within two months timeframe, we will start these services here and next month in Delhi," he added.

He said the secondary market brokering arm would offer services to investors and traders alike. The company is a member of the BSE and the NSE on both cash and derivatives segments. It is also a depository participant under Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) and a portfolio manager registered with Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI). This will help us in the current boom time. We are already present in the primary markets helping companies take them successfully to IPO and this would be a logical extension. The company is bullish on the market for the long term and there is great scope of growth for a service provider like Centrum, especially in the northern markets," Sawhney explained.

"We already have good visibility and expanding. We have followed different approach in our functioning style at our branches, like to start with break-even first. The branch expenses to be taken by the forex services and for profitability, we look at mutual fund distribution," he added.