For someone heading the world’s fastest stock exchange that is BSE, Ashish Kumar Chauhan, surprisingly isn’t a committed champion of day trading. Instead, he believes, investments make you prosperous.
Not because Chauhan’s first brush with markets with a princely Rs 50,000 in 1991, which was also several times his then salary, was a disaster. The bitter failure didn’t stop him from eventually landing an opportunity to steer the bourse itself.
Yet, Chauhan wants to create a safer, orderly and transparent market where individuals can play safe.
“Youngsters drive vehicles fast, but could hurt self or others. A vehicle is for safety and comfort, and not for adrenaline. But youngsters will be youngsters, and so are investors. Our job is to convince them not to ride too fast or without helmets,” says the 49-year-old, who turned around BSE from the depths of despair seen a decade ago.
His office on the 25th floor of BSE in Dalal Street has a huge glass wall on one side streaming in ample natural light. Though not sprawling unlike other offices, it’s a room with a view of the city that effortlessly impresses visitors including a battery of blazer-clad men who just marched in. Turns out, it was state-run Hudco’s first day of listing and the top management were in attendance following the customary opening bell. After exchanging pleasantries, he rejoins the conversation and to sip his cup of fresh Earl Grey tea.
“People think markets aren’t safe, because they are volatile. But life itself is volatile,” Chauhan quips. India’s 98 per cent individuals are Average Joe investors, who see stock market as a high-risk sport for their money, but Chauhan says markets could be their friend. Perhaps his confidence to win over the elusive lot stems from his previous successes.
In 2009, mired in scandals, BSE ran into a monumental credibility crisis. Foreign shareholders had written off investments, there was mistrust, products weren’t attractive, derivatives didn’t even exist and there was legacy technology. BSE roped him in, when it bought software from his family-run firm. Once in, he knew his next challenge: to resurrect Asia’s oldest bourse.
“There was no magic wand. A lot of blood and sweat went into it,” he reveals, adding that concerted efforts helped shed the ‘brokers’ club’ image. But this isn’t a first for someone, who embraces challenges only to court success.
When he joined IDBI in 1991, hoping to chart a career in banking, destiny had different plans. Within a year, a precocious talent propelled Chauhan from the ivory towers of banking to NSE, where his reputation was sealed. At 25, he was the youngest to set up the country’s first commercial satellite telecom network that became the genesis of NSE.
It was around liberalization that the notorious Harshad Mehta scandal rocked markets in 1992. IDBI along with others, pooled six professionals — the youngest being Chauhan — to set up NSE.
Reason: He was the only engineer, spoke local dialect (back then brokers were predominantly Gujarati) and was IT-savvy. His task was to replace manual trading —vulnerable to manipulation — with screen-based trading, which was unheard of, with bourses including the US and Europe still on floor-trading. Telephone connectivity was expensive, time-consuming and unreliable.
Chauhan knew satellite communication, which was until then limited to scientific research, was the solution. A technocrat, he taught himself all about telecom — he still has those books as memorabilia— and flew down to the US to study other industrial applications.
“When I look back, I see youthful exuberance. It was written in the books and I didn’t think, it cannot be done,” chuckles Chauhan, who travels half the week and has a travel trolley in office, ready to go at a moment’s notice.
He left NSE in 2000 to start his own e-commerce venture, which folded up during the dotcom bust. It was funded by Reliance, which absorbed the team subsequently. At Reliance, he handled communications, retail and even sports (Mumbai IPL team). “I always wanted to be a banker, not an engineer. But every time, I moved away from IT, it came back,” says Chauhan, clad in a black Modi jacket, a health band on his left wrist and a sacred thread on this right.
Technology revived BSE’s fortunes, but it wasn’t easy. The exchange has huge member base, who aren’t its employees. Convincing them to adapt was harrowing. “In IT, it’s news only if something goes wrong. So, for me, no news was good news,” recalls the bespectacled Chauhan.
There’s an overload of advice and tips attracting investors.
“All wise men, or wise statements from not so wise men, teach something, only if you can internalise. If you want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, you have to understand that although he may say many things about body building, you need to figure out what works for you,” he explains.
Unlike China, Indian government, responsibly, doesn’t promote markets considering the risk. But men like Chauhan assure its safety and how? They want most safe products to go to small investors like government bonds, and sovereign gold bonds, slightly riskier corporate bonds to sophisticated individuals, equities to some and derivatives to a few.
The ongoing market rally with benchmark Sensex crossing the magical 30,000-mark stoked fears of an impending bubble, which Chauhan shrugs off as asset price inflation. It’s this euphoria or lack of it that creates uncertainty that he tries to avoid.
His work table is neatly stacked with a monitor, books, files, phones. One can notice scriptures like Hanuman Chalisa, and Durga Chalisa, lined up with table top deities. But above all, the one striking feature is a lone-standing book holder with the mighty, sacred Gita, which Chauhan refers from time to time.
It’s from this that he offers a simple nugget of philosophical wisdom: Work without expecting results. If you aren’t obsessed, you may do the job correctly.