When badla trading was all the rage on the stockmarkets, Naresh Pachisia, managing director of SKP Securities, decided that this was a service he would not offer his clients. It was commonplace but irregular and the authorities were looking for ways to clamp down on it.

Pachisia lost customers. His business suffered. But he stood by his guns. “We displeased and lost clients who wanted us to offer this service to them as almost all other brokerages were offering it, providing astronomically high returns,” says Pachisia.

A few years down the line, he looks back at the decision with great pride. “We were vindicated when the entire system collapsed in 2001 with huge defaults and the carcasses of brokerages all around, leading to the near closure of the Calcutta Stock Exchange,” says Pachisia.

Incorporated in 1990 to offer portfolio management and merchant banking services, SKP went public in 1995 when its shares were listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength. In 2002, it became Eastern India’s largest distributor of mutual funds, quite an achievement considering that it had entered this line of business only in 1996. “Having maintained a client-need-centric investment advisory approach, an absolutely clean track record and providing good training to employees has been a satisfying part of the journey,” says Pachisia.

It was during this journey that he realised that he could do a lot more to make investors aware of mutual funds and their advantages. “Having interacted with hundreds of investors across the country, I saw how little they knew about investment. I found myself repeating the same things during my interactions with people. I wanted to pen down my thoughts,” he recalls. The result was The SKP Mutual Funds Book, a 24-page handbook on investing in mutual funds written in 1999 and The SKP Mutual Funds Guide to Prosperity, a 110-page book written in 2002, which covered useful investment concepts. “I was surprised at the overwhelming response. There is tremendous demand for an updated version of the last book,” he says. He is also looking forward to writing a third.

Pachisia believes in sharing the knowledge he has gained. “Knowledge is important only to the extent it can add value to other people’s lives. I have benefited from other people sharing their knowledge with me and love to do so myself,” he says.

Although Pachisia’s family has been in the broking business for a long time, his aim was not to just stick to the family tradition. “I always dreamt of rendering value-added services to investors, rather than merely offering speculative broking services to select clients, which was the most popular and profitable service those days,” says Pachisia. And to this day, this remains his key philosophy.

An alumnus of St Xavier’s, Pachisia also had the opportunity to do his schooling in six different schools spanning three cities. This, according to him, provided an excellent exposure.

Pachisia believes that a good education and good business sense are musts to succeed. “The combined qualities of a good businessman and a good business manager is an excellent combination to succeed in this high-growth, highly-competitive environment,” he asserts.

He also identifies a vision and a core set of values as things one should have to succeed in life. “Identify yourself, who you are and what you want to be. Leverage your strengths and work on your weaknesses. Have clarity of conviction and a commitment to live up to it,” he says. “These are some of the principles I live by.”

Being in a business that involves dealing with high-pressure situations everyday, Pachisia follows a simple principle to succeed. “Patience and persistence, along with clarity of conviction, are the keys to success. My commitment made me work harder and smarter to achieve my goals,” he says.

Pachisia’s one-time passion was cricket and he was an aspiring wicket keeper. Today, he keeps the wickets for lakhs of investors who come to him for advice. “Creating prosperity, securing the future, and bringing happiness to all stakeholders is the core purpose of our being in business,” he says.

Pachisia likes to spend time with family and friends. Movies, music, watching sports and knowledge channels on TV and non-fiction reading are other sources of relaxation. “I was a regular theatre actor at one point. The occasional opportunities that I get to act even today is a great stress buster. Golf and the gym have been my other stress busters at various points of time. Currently I practise yoga,” he says.

Based on a conversation with V. Kumara Swamy in Calcutta