says he is a toughie, it is difficult to digest, especially given his gentle demeanour and genial appearance. But hear him talk about his resilience when faced with adversity and it's not at all difficult to believe him. Rathi has been out of the spotlight for a long time, but that does not mean that he was sitting around twiddling his thumbs.
Rathi says he has been busy putting out fires and rebuilding his organisation - Anand Rathi Securities (ARS) which had literally come to a standstill after allegations of being in a bear cartel were levelled against him.
The job in hand called for an extraordinary effort, but those who remember the broker who rose to being the president of the BSE in a span of just five years would be least surprised by the results. "I did not take the allegations lying down and fought tooth and nail till my integrity was vindicated," says Rathi.
But apart from restoring his reputation, it has been work that assumed top priority for him.
And it shows - Rathi has extended his organisation's reach to cities like Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore and moved it from the sub-broker franchisee route to having its own branches, offering wealth management products targeted primarily at corporates and HNIs.
He also has offices in Dubai and Bangkok, providing wealth management advice on global investment.
Rathi aspires to build his organisation to be among the top five investment bankers and financial services groups in the country. ARS is already one of India's top 10 non-banking mutual fund distributors with assets under management of over Rs 2,500 crore and has acquired over 30,000 direct clients so far.
Ask him about the market and Rathi says there is a huge layer of uncertainty that has enveloped the markets and left investors with no clue about what course of action to take.
"Investors should always go in for planned advice while ad-hoc speculating would just be a harbinger of trouble," says Rathi.
He feels that one should approach investing in a systematic manner and assess one's risk profile before taking the plunge.
However, he concedes that speculation is a natural phenomenon which no regulator can aspire to control. As far as protecting investors' interest is concerned, Rathi says Sebi has done a decent job as was apparent on Black Monday.
Rathi says BSE should undertake some measures to fight this 'speculation phenomenon'. "The whole margin mechanism needs to be reviewed," he says.
One measure that he suggests is raising the margin on F&O transactions to 40-50 per cent from the present levels of 10-15 per cent.
Secondly, margin collection should be done in cash, which would act as a deterrent to speculators. Besides, stock futures should be delivery-based which would curb short selling, he adds.
This gold medalist Chartered Accountant started his career with DCM as a senior management trainee before embarking on a 20-year association with the Birla group.
In 1994 he gave up his position as president of Indian Rayon to set up his own business. He made it to the governing board of the BSE in the minimum stipulated time of three years after being a member of the BSE and was instrumental in the computerisation of the exchange in a record time of 50 days.
Two years later, as president of the BSE, Rathi played an active role in developing a surveillance system, and setting up the CDSL at a cost of less than Rs 30 crore, which is less than half the cost involved in setting up the NSDL.
He relishes his vacations once a year with his grandchildren apart from his daily morning walks and devotes the rest of his free time in managing a charitable trust for the benefit of the blind and the underpriviledged.
