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Sankunni K
Sankunni works as a Senior Sub Editor with India.com. He focusses more on business, international relations and politics, notwithstanding his love for human interest stories. ... Read More
New Delhi: Do you remember details of all the investments you have made to date? Do your parents or grandparents remember about the investments they might have made during their lifetime?
The short answer is ‘No’ in case of most individuals. Even though many people actively invest across stocks, mutual funds, fixed deposits et cetera during their golden years, some forget about the same due to various reasons.
Delhi-based GLC Wealth is a company that helps people recover the ‘hidden wealth’ they are sitting on even if they have zero knowledge about the same.
According to GLC Wealth’s website, it “identifies and traces investors who have Unclaimed/Forgotten investments in Shares/Real Estate/Government Securities etc”.
To quote an instance, a report by Benzinga talks about an 85-year-old who lives alone in Bengaluru having no idea about a little fortune that he had under his name. He, along with wife, while working in the Gulf in 1960s and 70s, had invested some of their earnings into physical shares of Indian stocks. As time passed, the couple forgot about the same. While he lives alone in Bengaluru, his wife now lives with his children in Canada.
GLC Wealth tracked him down, informed him that the investments he held jointly with his wife were now worth Rs 2 crore, and wanted to help him recover the fortune, the report said.
“So this was almost a six month-long process,” Sanchit Garg, co-founder and CEO of GLC Wealth told Benzinga.
“We approached their family, his children through LinkedIn, we had to build that trust because for them, it was something which came out of the blue,” he added.
One of the major concerns that the company faces is convincing people about the authenticity of the service it’s offering. In today’s age, especially in India, several people have fallen prey to scamsters who make such calls promising big rewards, lottery wins or similar monetary benefits.
Sanchit Garg says that many people have to be convinced at first that they aren’t being scammed and that the company legitimately wants to help them recover their lost funds.
“The process in itself was complex because he did not have any documentation related to the investments,” he said. “Plus, he’s staying in Bangalore, his wife is staying in Canada. Getting documentation done for both of them in two different jurisdictions as per Indian compliances—we had to get that done,” he added.
GLC Wealth also helped the octogenarian open a demat account and completed all the documentation and compliances for loss of share certificates. And as much happy ending it could be, GLC Wealth successfully helped the family recover their forgotten wealth, the report said.
The government of India, in September 2016, had set up the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), under Section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013. The IEPFA is entrusted with the responsibility of administration of the Investor Education Protection Fund (IEPF), making refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits/debentures etc. to investors, promoting awareness among investors, and protecting the interests of the investors.
The fund has a balance of Rs 18,433 crore and 53 crore shares, as of the financial year ended 2021.
According to Garg, there is around Rs 2 lakh crore to Rs 3 lakh crore in unclaimed investments across shares, dividends, unclaimed bank accounts, fixed deposits, provident funds and insurance policies. Only a small fraction of these lost funds have been reclaimed so far, he added.
When government established IEPFA in 2016, Sanchit Garg and his business partner Ankit Garg saw an opportunity in it and started their business in 2017.
“So we knew that this is a huge space — there are lakhs of such investors who have not claimed the investments,” Sanchit Garg said. “And then this specific domain started becoming our core competency.”
As per the information available on its website, to date, GLC Wealth has advised over 20,000 investors about recoveries worth over Rs 500 crores and made over 500 successful claims.
According to Sanchit Garg, around 75 per cent of their clients aren’t even aware that they have unclaimed investments in their names.
“We get almost 40-50 calls every day from all across India — not only in India, in fact, we get calls from NRIs (non-resident Indians) also — so we get a lot of incoming interest as well,” he told Benzinga. “But in terms of business, my core focus is on outgoing clients where people are sitting, enjoying their life, unaware that they are sitting on a gold mine,” Garg added.
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