My debut is bigger than Deepika or Anushka

My debut is bigger than Deepika or Anushka

Sonil Dedhiaslidebyline_location

Not many people noticed her cameos in Fashion and Heroine but former Miss India Pooja Chopra seems unfazed by it.

The model-turned-actress plays the lead role in next week's release, Commando, which co-stars Vidyut Jamwal. It has been directed by debutant director Dilip Ghosh.

Pooja is relishing the fact that the first promo of her forthcoming film received a positive response.

In a candid conversation with Sonil Dedhia, Pooja recalls her Miss India journey, and why she's desperate forCommando to become a hit.

Considering Commando is an action movie favouring the hero more, what made you choose it for your debut in films?

I disagree that Vidyut's role in the film is given importance. If you compare my screen presence with the debut films of Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma or Sonakshi Sinha, I think it's way different. I think my debut is bigger than Deepika or Anushka's.

Why do you say that?

Commando is not only an action film. It is a story which is said from my character's point of view.

The tiff is between the girl and a villain. I play the central character in the film. Without my character, there wouldn't have been Commando.

You must have got a lot of offers before Commando...

(Interrupts) I am glad I didn't take them up.

What kind of offers were they?

They were not meaty roles and neither were they big banners or producers.

But you did do cameos in Fashion and Heroine.

Yes, when (director) Madhur Bhandarkar asks you to do a cameo, it would be foolish to turn him down.

Today, if Rajkumar Hirani tells me I have just one shot, I'll do it.

When I did Fashion, I wasn't even a Miss India. I was amongst the models and was given a dialogue. As far asHeroine is concerned, Madhur very clearly had told me that it isn't going to be a launch pad for me.

You say you were waiting for big banners and directors, and yes, Reliance Entertainment and Vipul Shah (the producers) are big names but the director Dilip Ghosh is making his debut.

I was very clear about one thing: either you give me a strong director, producer, or a strong hero because I don't have a good script sense as yet.

This is my first film. I didn't want to do something new and experimental. I didn't want to take the risk because I know I won't get a second chance.

When I got a call just for a meeting for this film, I was told it's a Reliance Entertainment and Vipul Shah film. I had almost made up my mind to say yes to the film.

When I read the script, I told myself I must get this film. I felt my character is so endearing, she is charming, she is fun, she takes the villain hands on, and she is a total pataka.

I have laughed, cried, and fought the villain. It couldn't get better than this. I kept saying to myself that I have to crack this, and I did! (yells and laughs)

Image: Pooja Chopra and Vidyut Jamwal in Comnnando

How difficult was it to crack Commando?

Honestly, not very difficult. The character is a lot like me in real life. When the screen test got over the director actually told me that it didn't look like I was mouthing the dialogues -- it was coming so naturally.

Did the hotness quotient of Vidyut Jamwal and the frenzied reaction he gets from women intimidate you?

Vidyut and I have always been friends. We have done a lot of fashion shows together. So to have such feelings for a friend is difficult.

What was challenging for me were those little intimate scenes that we had to do.

What was it like doing the action scenes?

I did the stunts myself but I will never do them again. No one in their sane mind would want to jump off a 45 feet bridge into water when you don't know how to swim.

I am not an adventurous person in real life. I am never going to do bungee jumping and sky diving. It was very challenging and I will never do it again.

You say your mother is the inspiration for whatever you are in life.

I think not only for me but anyone in my family would have felt that their entire life. I am indebted to her. Every child feels a certain respect or love or connection for their family, but for me it's a different case.

The stand she took to take two girls and walk out of a man's house and the kind of struggle she went through cannot be described.

Waking up at 4 am and going to work, coming back, taking tuitions after that, and over and above that, taking care of my sister and me...

I have seen her struggle and somewhere deep down, I feel I am indebted to her so my entire being is totally dedicated to her.

Did the struggles you had when growing up toughen you for any struggle in life, even maybe in films?

The struggle in my filmi career until now has been the waiting period. The four films that I was offered I am very happy I didn't take up. Then the dilemma was should I take up the offer or not? What if I don't get a better film ahead?

There's nobody to guide you so every decision you make you are the one responsible for it. I am glad I waited.

For a role like this to come my way is a blessing in disguise especially in today's times when girls in films are hardly getting any screen time.

Today, a lot of films revolve around the actor and actresses don't have much to do. There are top of the line actresses who are a part of these films just to get a wider appeal. Would you take up these offers?

Of course, yes. Even before Commando if I had been offered a film with a big actor and I had just two songs and five scenes, I would have done it because it works.

At the same time, if I had an option of choosing between doing a central character or just be a part of the film for two songs and a few scenes, then I would go with the first one.

Do you come with a set of do's and don'ts in the industry?

I come from a middle class, conservative family. Just hugging Vidyut on screen, who has been a friend of mine, was a little awkward. At the moment, lip locks, lovemaking scenes, item numbers and short clothes are a complete no for me.

Today, if someone offers me The Dirty Picture, I would say no because I don't think I will be able to pull it off convincingly. Maybe things might change in the future. 

Image: Pooja Chopra at the Pantaloons Femina Miss India Contest 2009

Your mother in an interview described you as a complete tomboy.

(Laughs loudly) I come from a family of four women -- my nani (grandmother), mother, elder sister and me. As I was the youngest and as there was no male member in the family, I was given a lot of love and was spoilt for choices.

My sister is seven years elder than me but she is very shy and soft spoken. I was a complete tomboy. Once, a boy hit my sister and the next day, I went back to hit him. I was a complete bully in school. 

I studied in a convent school and the girls were big fans of mine. They had crush on me and would write letters to me on Valentine's Day. I had short hair. I wanted to be an IPS officer like Kiran Bedi. In short, I was the male member of the house (laughs).

So how did the transition from tomboy to beauty queen come about?

I was doing fashion shows in college and a designer picked me to do a catalogue. The photographs came on hoardings and in a magazine and people started appreciating me. I felt really happy. It also allowed me to earn extra pocket money.

Tanushree Dutta and I had done a lot of fashion shows in Pune. When she became Miss India, I felt if she could win, so could I. That's when I decided to participate in Miss India.

It became my dream. I didn't leave any stone unturned to win the competition. I had to transform myself from a tomboy to being a regular girl.

Every year they would show the making on television and I would go to a friend's place and record it and watch it.

I was born in Kolkata and so I decided to participate from the East zone. The advantage of that was that if I won that contest I would get an entry to the top ten. I won Miss India East and went on to win Miss India.

You fractured your leg just a few days before the Miss World pageant. What was your state of mind during that period?

My biggest regret in life is not winning the Miss World title. I could not compete or stand there as an equal to the other contestants. If I had lost as an equal, I wouldn't have felt bad.

Out of 120 contestants, I was already in the top 16 contestants, which is a huge achievement. Just five days before the final rounds, I fractured my leg.

All the girls representing their country had to assemble at 7 pm for dinner. Miss Indonesia was sharing the room with me and she took some time to get ready. I was in a hurry and instead of taking the elevator, I opted for the staircase. Suddenly I tripped. I was moved to a hospital and found that I had a fracture and was advised two months of complete bed rest.

I was completely devastated. I remember Julia Morley, the head of the Miss World pageant, came to the hospital at night to meet me and told me either I pack my bags and go back home or sit and watch the other contestants. 

I chose to participate. I limped onto the stage and took two steps. It was really tough and disheartening.

So, like any other Miss India, you too decided on becoming an actress?

No, actually I never wanted to become an actress. After Miss India, I was advised bed rest because of the fracture. I wanted to open a cafe or restaurant for my mother because she has always worked in a restaurant. But she said wanted me to become an actor. That's when I thought if her happiness is to see me as an actor, I will do that.

Commando is like life and death for me. I am desperate for it to become a hit.

I am not from a filmi background and everybody knows that a second chance for a newcomer is very difficult.

My mother wants to see me as an actor and this is the best I could perform as an actor. I have given my best toCommando. I don't think I can do anything more than this.

If this fails, it will be my failure for life because I will not be able to fulfill her dreams.

More

Do you remember your first pay cheque?

My first pay was Rs 300. I was in junior college when I participated in a fashion show in Kolhapur. We were taken in a bus from Pune. 

Aditi Govitrikar was the show-stopper and the designer's name was Shraddha Nigam, who was from Kolhapur. I had short hair and was wearing a ghaghra-choli (laughs).

You made your acting debut in a south film (Ponnar Shankar). Will you continue working down south?

As of now, no, because the language is a huge challenge. If I don't like doing something, I won't do it.

The reason I did a south film was because I wanted to check whether I could face the camera and enjoy being an actress. It was a litmus test.

If in future, if I get some good offers, I might consider taking them up.

Source : http://www.rediff.com

LIC turns out to be the government's ATM, buys record amount of bonds and PSU stocks

LIC turns out to be the government's ATM, buys record amount of bonds and PSU stocks

Of the Rs 4.67 lakh crore raised by the government through securities, LIC provided over Rs 1.10 lakh crore, or 21.4% of the total figure.

Life Insurance Corporation was the most dependable automated teller machine for the government in the past year, buying record amounts of bonds and stocks of public-sector firms.

The state-run insurer's purchase of government bonds rose 20%, and it bought nearly 40% of the shares sold via offer for sale (OFS) in four out of total seven PSUissues, said people familiar with the investments.

LIC's bailout of PSU issues dipped this year as some blue chip stocks, such as NTPC, Oil IndiaBSE -0.38 %and NMDC, found other investors. But share sales of most others, including SAILBSE 0.56 % and Hindustan Copper, had to be bailed out by LIC. The insurer mobilises nearly Rs 450 crore a day, which is invested in bonds and equity.

LIC remains the single-largest buyer of government bonds because of its control over more than three-fourths of the life insurance industry and the mandatory 50% investment it has to make in government securities. This, though considered safe, has also drawn criticism that it is a form of financial repression and reduces the returns for policyholders.

Of the Rs 4.67 lakh crore raised by the government through securities, LIC provided over Rs 1.10 lakh crore, or 21.4% of the total figure. There is more demand for long-term papers than availability.

"As a corporation, LIC is like a trustee, and it should not be a party to any wrongdoing so that the trust of policyholders is not shaken," said Ashwin Parekh, national director, Ernst & Young.

LIC invests in government securities with a view to holding them till maturity, and mark-to-market losses in the interim are not good. Parekh said it would be a good practice to evaluate returns on redemption each time it happens and compare it with benchmark government bond rates. "Any shortfall in the return should be compensated by the government," he suggested.



Foreign institutional investors and domestic investors, such as private insurers, mutual funds and banks, showed interest in the government's disinvestment plan, contributing 16% of the total disinvestment figure of Rs 23,900 crore.

This is the highest amount raised by the government in a fiscal year via stake sales in public sector units.

LIC invested Rs 236 crore in Nalco (35% of the OFS size), Rs 142 crore in RCF (45%), Rs 608 crore in Hindustan CopperBSE 14.72 % (44%), Rs 923 crore in NTPCBSE 1.02 % (5%), Rs 1,069 crore in SAIL (71%) and Rs 282 crore in NMDCBSE -1.89 % (4.7%).

At Rs 11,500 crore, NTPC's OFS was the biggest, followed by NMDC's Rs 5,973-crore issue.

LIC had contributed 81% to the government's Rs 14,000-crore mop-up from share sales in 2011-12 by investing Rs 11,400 crore in ONGCBSE -1.08 %.

Source : SHILPY SINHA,ET BUREAU 

Can stocks help you retire rich?

Can stocks help you retire rich?

The insipid performance of equity-linked pension portfolios in the past five years has raised questions about the need to line one's retirement nest egg with stocks.

Chitra Gaur firmly believed that her NPS investmentswould outperform her husband's debt-based Provident Fund. "With 15% of the corpus invested in stocks, I was expecting a return of 9-10%," says the Delhi-based government school teacher (see picture).

However, despite the equity exposure and the fact that the markets were trading at very low levels throughout 2008-9, Chitra's NPS portfolio has given a return of 8.78% in the past five years, compared with the 8.62% return delivered by the Provident Fund during the same period. This calculation is based on the internal rate of return (IRR) of monthly contributions from April 2008 till March 2013 to the NPS fund for government employees managed by the UTI Retirement Solutions. Put simply, these are the SIP returns of the fund for the past five years.

Sitting in his office in a quiet part of bustling south Delhi, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) chairman Yogesh Agarwal is neither surprised, nor perturbed by these numbers. "There can't be a significant difference because the government allows only 15% of the corpus to be invested in equity," he says. The PFRDA wants the government employees to be allowed the same investment choices in the NPS as other investors. A private sector investor is allowed to define his asset allocation and can put up to 50% of his corpus in equity funds.

Will this help boost returns? We considered the SIP returns of NPS funds for general investors in the past four years and found that the equity funds have lagged debt funds. The calculation is based on the NAVs of the first reporting day of every month since June 2009. Aggressive investors, who allocated the maximum 50% to equity, have earned an average 7.3% (see table on next page), while balanced investors earned 8.3%.

However, the biggest surprise was the return earned by ultra-cautious investors, who steadfastly stayed away from the stock market. They have earned an average 9.74%, with the best performing SBI Pension Fund delivering double-digit returns. The softening of interest rates and the drop in bond yields in the past two years has led to better returns for debt funds.

Should you invest in equity?

For investors the big question is: should they expose their retirement savings to a volatile asset class such as stocks? Won't it be prudent to stick to the safety of debt? Central PF Commissioner Anil Swarup certainly thinks so. "It is possible to earn good returns without compromising on safety. We can go for debt instruments that are not as secure as gilts but can give us better returns," he says.

Swarup points out that the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the EPFO has recently liberalised the investment norms for the Provident Fund. Till now, the organisation was allowed to invest in AAA rated PSU bonds for up to 15 years, but the CBT has now permitted investments in longer duration bonds of up to 25 years. It has also given the nod to investments in private sector bonds, provided that the issuer is a listed company with a net worth of at least Rs 3,000 crore and has generated profits, and paid a dividend of at least 15% for the past five years. Besides, the bonds should have been rated AAA by at least two rating agencies.

Swarup reckons that this liberal mandate could help the EPF earn 50-75 basis points higher returns through such investments. "The safety of the investment is not compromised, but by merely relaxing the duration and issuer guidelines we will be able to earn higher returns," he adds.

However, market experts scoff at this ultra-cautious approach. Their contention: a 100% debt portfolio will never be able to beat inflation. The EPFO is allowed to invest up to 15% in stocks, but has never done so. Even if 1% of the EPFO corpus is put in stocks, that's Rs 4,500 crore worth of fresh investment flowing into the market.

Now you know why the Finance Ministry, Sebi and other market participants want the EPFO to invest some of its gargantuan portfolio in stocks. Admittedly, the past five years have seen unprecedented volatility in the stock markets. Even seasoned investors have been caught on the wrong foot. The 2008 crash took the Nifty to a multi-year low level. This was followed by a sharp rebound in 2009-10 and sustained choppiness thereafter. At the same time, debt investments earned good returns when bond yields fell sharply from 9.5% in early 2008 to 5.25% by the end of that black swan year.

Financial planners insist that equity is a necessary ingredient of your retirement pie. "An investor needs to have a portion of his retirement corpus in equity, otherwise he might miss his pension target," says Sailesh Multani, head of financial planning at Edelweiss Financial Planning. He points out that many investors do not factor in inflation when they set their retirement targets. "A sum of Rs 1 crore may seem enough right now, but it won't be so 15-20 years later. Retirees should be counselled about the importance of inflation-adjusted returns," he says.

How much is enough?

While this is correct, the problem lies in defining the 'portion' as a percentage of retirement savings. Every individual has a different risk profile and various investment options offer different levels of equity allocation. While the EPF has no equity exposure, the NPS funds for government employees put 15% in stocks and private NPS investors can invest up to 50% in this volatile class. If you have a unit-linked pension plan from a life insurance company, you can put up to 90% of your investments in equity.

There's also a rule of thumb that says one should have an equity exposure of 100 minus one's age. So, at 30, you should have about 70% of your portfolio in equity. At 55, the exposure to this volatile asset class should have been pared down to 45%. In fact, the NPS offers an auto choice where the investor's age decides the equity exposure. The 50% allocation to equity reduces every year by 2% after the investor turns 35, till it becomes 10% at the age of retirement. The returns for investors who have opted for auto rebalancing of their NPS investment may be slightly better than those earned by aggressive investors.

So, how much should you allocate to equity when saving for retirement? The portfolios of some of the top performing MIP mutual funds provide some answers. These schemes generally have 15-25% of their corpus invested in stocks. One scheme, the Birla Sun Life MIP II Savings 5, stands out in the crowd. Its equity exposure is capped at 10%, which limits the risk. In the past five years, the equity allocation has averaged 6.8% and currently stands at 8.6%.

In fact, during the bull run of 2007 and the mayhem of 2008, Birla Sun Life MIP II Savings 5 had no stocks in its portfolio. Even when the stock market was down by almost 50%, the fund did not change its mandate, but started nibbling at equity only when the dust had settled in early 2009. Yet, it has churned out a decent return for investors. At 8.7%, its SIP returns since April 2008 are marginally lower than those of the other top performing MIPs (see table).

It's instructive that the schemes with very high equity limits have not performed as well as those with lower ceilings. Clearly, higher returns don't necessarily require higher risks. Even a small 10-15% equity allocation is enough to help you reach your target. If you are investing in a 100% debt-oriented PF, you can supplement your retirement corpus by putting a small amount in equity funds or in your unit-linked pension plan. Chennai-based Uma and Ramesh Gopalan (see picture) invest in diversified equity funds because their GPF is completely based on debt.


Don't chase returns

Retirement is a non-negotiable goal. The worst thing you can do is to be lured by high returns. Studies have shown that when it comes to long-term goals such as retirement, the time at which you start saving and the amount you put away have a greater bearing on your final corpus than the return that your investment earns. The best part about retiral benefits from an employer is that these are compulsory and automatic. In the organised sector, the employee seldom has a choice. Also, the quantum of the monthly investment is linked to the income. As the income of the investor goes up with every annual increment, so do his retirement savings.

This is a challenge faced by self-employed professionals and those in the unorganised sector. Even a disciplined investor may lose out if he does not raise the quantum of his investments every year.

In fact, the superannuation benefits offered by an employer can fulfil the retirement needs of an investor if he is disciplined. If one starts putting Rs 2,500 a month in the PF or the NPS at 25 (with a matching contribution from his employer and a 10% increase in salary every year), even a modest return of 8% will grow his corpus to Rs 2 crore by the time he retires at 60.

Unfortunately, very few people are able to reach the Rs 2 crore milestone during their careers. Every time they change jobs, the PF balance is either withdrawn, or worse, they forget to transfer it. An estimated Rs 16,000 crore is lying in dormant PF accounts. Employees have as many as 3-4 accounts with different employers or at various locations.

The NPS investors, however, don't face such problems. They cannot withdraw before retirement and their NPS account is portable across employers and locations. Two years ago, the EPFO announced that if there is no activity in an account for more than three years, the balance will stop earning interest. This is expected to nudge subscribers into consolidating their PF accounts.

Swarup says the EPFO is working on a system where there will be no need to transfer the account. As with the NPS, every PF subscriber will be given a unique number when he joins and the account will be portable across employers. "We are in the process of establishing a centralised database of subscribers. Once this is accomplished, we will be able to roll it out in the next 12 months or so," he says.

Source : BABAR ZAIDI,ET BUREAU 

Should you bet on gold loan companies?

Should you bet on gold loan companies?

After the revised RBI norms and the adverse impact of fall in gold prices, it would be prudent to limit your exposure to such firms.

A 5 per cent drop in gold prices should not be cause for alarm since it can be seen as a temporary correction, right? Yet, gold loan companies are scurrying for cover, with ManappuramBSE 3.00 % Finance, a prominent lender against the security of gold, witnessing the fallout of this price drop last week. Its shares lost 30 per cent of value in just two trading sessions, a reaction to the company's declaration that it was expecting revenue losses in the current quarter due to the dip. 

The shares of Muthoot FinanceBSE -1.18 % also took a slight hit. Though all gold loan companies claim to have a sufficient cushion against the decline in gold prices, are their business models sturdy enough to withstand a sustained fall? More importantly, should you be putting your money in the stocks and bonds of these lenders?

A rigid model 

The business proposition of gold loan companies is simple: they disburse loans to people who are willing to offer their gold possessions as collateral. The sanctioned loan is lesser than the worth of the pledged jewellery, which acts as a safety margin for the lender. Should the borrower default on the loan, the company can sell the pledged gold in the market through an auction. Since the value of the actual loan is less than the value of gold, a slight drop in gold price does not come in the way of the company recovering its money.

However, the model's simplicity makes it susceptible since the profitability of the company hinges entirely on a low default rate and stability in gold prices. The lender bets on the fact that the borrower is not likely to default as he is typically attached to the jewellery and would want it back. However, this argument does not hold much water. If, for some reason, gold prices tank by, say, more than 20 per cent, it would actually be an incentive for the borrower to default.

Suppose a company gives Rs 80 as loan against gold jewellery worth Rs 100. Assuming a 25 per cent rate of interest, the borrower would owe the company Rs 100. Now, if gold prices fall by 15 per cent, the value of the gold pledged as collateral comes down to Rs 85. A person who is struggling to make ends meet will no longer have an incentive to pay back the money. This is another problem with gold loan companies: most of their clients are not credit worthy, pledging their jewellery since they they are badly strapped for cash and have no other alternative.

For the company, too, the credit profile of the borrower takes a backseat since growth comes from lending more and more. If, however, gold prices fall, it is a potential minefield for the company. In the case of Manappuram, the problem is acute because the loan-tovalue (LTV) ratio is very high.

Since March 2012, the revised Reserve Bank of Indiaguidelines require the loans to be capped at 60 per cent of the value of pledged gold. Prior to this, most companies were lending at much higher LTVs (up to 85 per cent in some cases) as soaring gold prices did not warrant caution.

About 15 per cent of the loans disbursed byManappuramBSE 3.00 % in the third quarter of the fiscal year are now under stress as these were lent at high LTVs, with the average LTV for its outstanding loans being 70 per cent. Even at a higher LTV, the risk to the lender's principal remains low unless gold prices fall much more sharply.


However, it also means that if the borrower defaults, the lender has to forgo the anticipated interest income on the loan. Since lenders account for these receivables in their books, a default or under-recovery means a large-scale reversal in interest income. Besides, the bullet nature of repayment, where borrowers repay the entire sum at one go at the end of the tenure, means that one cannot predict a default till such a time.

Another problem faced by gold loan companies is the availability of low-cost funds. These firms had been on a growth spree as they had access to cheap funds from banks, which were allowed to fund NBFCs for lending against gold as part of priority sector lending activity. However, now that the RBI has excluded this category from priority sector lending, their source of low-cost funding has dried up.

These companies are now forced to borrow at a much higher cost in the form of non-convertible debentures and bank credit lines, which has led to reduction in margins.
Should you invest? 

It is evident that gold loan companies don't take kindly to a price fall. Even if defaults don't rise sharply with every dip in gold price, the business is affected as the loan size also reduces in tandem with the value of gold. The revised RBI lending norms have also taken the sheen off the gold loan companies, with the customer base shrinking slightly.

The slashing of the LTV and the higher auction of gold jewellery have led to the decline in customer base. Says Ambareesh Baliga, a market expert: "The growth expectations for these companies will have to be tempered in line with the lower disbursements after the revised guidelines. Several brokerages have pruned the earnings estimates for gold loan companies for the fiscal year 2013."
The credit profiles of these companies could also face a threat in case of a sustained fall in gold prices. With reference to Manappuram, IcraBSE 3.88 % observes, "If the lenders were to become cautious and restrict access to these limits or hold back on fresh limits, the credit profile of the company could be adversely affected."

However, some believe that the problems are not likely to persist since stringent lending norms have come into effect. A research note on ManappuramBSE 3.00 % byAmbit Capital states, "Such instances of income reversal should not recur due to lower LTVs andinterest rates on the loans issued after February 2012", provided gold prices do not fall by more than 10 per cent within a year.

Unless you believe in the misplaced notion that gold prices are only meant to go up, it would be wise to limit the exposure to such firms.

Source : SANKET DHANORKAR,ET BUREAU 

I really liked BW Fornightly Issues - Now it can compete with all Outlook Business,Forbes India,Fortune Magazine

Businessworld answers Weekly Vs Fortnightly question

by Anant Rangaswami 

The latest issue of Businessworld, the weekly from Ananda Bazar Group, sees the editor writing a letter to readers stating that the magazine would, henceforth, be a fortnightly.

“The Businessworld issue you are holding is the last weekly issue of the magazine. In two weeks, you will read the new fortnightly issue…,” he says.

“…In 1999, when we had turned weekly, there was a very clear need to do so. Twitter did not exist, and the Internet contained largely static content when it came to news. There was just one business news channel and it focused mostly on stocks…,” he adds.

The last weekly edition

And finally, he says, “…Over time though, the world changed and so did BW’s core content. As the Internet matured, and more dedicated business channels were born, they took over the primary role of disseminating news…News became an increasingly small portion of what BW offered….”

So this is it, the last cover of the last weekly issue of Businessworld.

The frequency of the magazine was once seen as both a virtue and a differentiator. “Businessworld is the largest selling Indian business magazine, and the only business weekly in the country,” it says, even today, in the ‘About Us’ section on their website.

When Newsweek announced the closure of the print edition and said that they would go all-digital, Firstpost had wondered what the implications were for print magazines in India. Businessworld’s frequency change is the first visible manifestation.

It’s ironic that Businessworld, which launched as a fornightly, turned weekly because of the need to keep up with changing media and media consumption. The Internet was reporting the news faster than could have been imagined earlier, and the two week lag made print look like a dinosaur. But with changing times, and more efficient web products, even a week is too much of a lag.

The BW decision makes sense: moving away from news to analysis. “News became an increasingly small portion of what BW offered,” the editor says in his letter.

In print, news cannot compete with the instant nature of digital. Analysis and comment will present value to readers, and a longer cycle (a fortnight instead of 7 days), will give the magazine more time to make studied and considered comments on the news of the immediate past.

The writing was on the wall. Businessworld has chosen to see it. Others will, as well. What’s next? News magazines?

Source : www.firstpost.com,  Anant Rangaswami

Old News - Rise of the Personal Concierge

Rise of the Personal Concierge

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00/999-6208; www.preferredgroupinc.com.

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LesConcierges800/829-1165; www.lesconcierges.com.

Ten 
44-207/479-3300; www.the-power-of-ten.com.

Personal Concierge International800/677-6901; www.personalconciergeintl.com.

With the help of a personal concierge, you can have it all—for a price. Michael Gross investigates the rise of this new travel guru and puts a trio of programs to the test.

When my relatives and friends ask what I want for a birthday or a holiday, I remind myself that they can't afford to buy me a country house, and reply with a quip: What do I want?Staff. And lately, I want it more than ever. It's a function of envy. For two years, I've been writing a book, 740 Park,about a New York apartment building filled with the sort of people who have not just help, but lots of it: governesses, butlers, cooks, drivers, maids, and personal assistants who do everything from walking the dog to trip planning. Alas, I am my own assistant.

My staff-deprived life ended earlier this year when I heard about the latest phenomenon: the personal concierge. Once, only hotel guests and American Express Platinum cardholders had 24-hour, seven-day-a-week access to experts who could offer advice on shopping and travel, make restaurant reservations, find event tickets, and order gifts. One concierge executive says that when American Express [which owns Travel + Leisure] created the Platinum Card in 1984, it "invented our category."

When Ben Elliot, a photogenic nightclub proprietor and a nephew of Camilla Parker-Bowles's, cofounded Quintessentially in 2000, the attendant publicity was rocket fuel for this lucrative new niche, inspiring resourceful individuals like Manhattan-based Johanna London, who left the jewelry business that same year and launched JL Concierge, charging $50 to $200 per task. Then, in 2001, Serena Cook, formerly Jade Jagger's private chef, started Deliciously Sorted on Ibiza. "I was always being asked to get VIP tables, boats, masseurs," she says. So now she does the work for $618 a day, attracting clients like Calvin Klein, Simon and Yasmin LeBon, Elle Macpherson, and Hugh Grant, who "don't want to look as if they don't know what they're doing."

The latter-day girl (or boy) Friday is not just for celebrities: nowadays you'll find personal concierges at high-end apartment complexes, office buildings, and shopping centers. Rolls-Royce, BMW, British Airways, and Sun Microsystems offer customized services to attract and keep clients. The field has become so crowded that Scottish businessmen brothers Steven and Gordon MacGeachy avoided using the word concierge when they opened Mint Lifestyle in Los Angeles in 2003. They dubbed their company a "global luxury service" providing "access," Steven says. "Concierge services are popping up every week," explains Cairo-born, Los Angeles–based Emad Ghobrial, whose Preferred Group service is so exclusive you must be referred by a member. "There are a lot of people with a lot of money out there who want experiences and need help arranging them."

Personal concierges will arrange everything from the sublime (scoring third-row seats for the Rolling Stones; a table at Per Se in New York; access to the private London club Annabel's) to the mundane (scheduling doctor appointments, or finding perfectly tailored dinner jackets—wherever you are). So, too, they provide "inspiration, reassurance, advice, planning, research," promises Philip Woolff, director of global customer retention for the high-end cell phone maker Vertu, which offers a dedicated concierge button. (At the prices for its leather- and jewel-trimmed phones—$4,900 to $31,850 each—that's the least Vertu can do.)

Hotel concierges have had to adapt in response. The Kempinski chain now offers an invitation-only program that lets loyal clients use its concierge services even when they're not at the hotel. And individual concierges like Christine Grimm of the Raffles L'Ermitage, Beverly Hills also act on behalf of hotel regulars whether they are checked in or not. "I know them well," she says. "I offer consistency. I'm really persistent. I just do a little bit more."

That's what I wanted: someone consistent and persistent, doing a little bit more...for me. But which service to use?I asked three top providers to let me join for a brief trial. I made a list of tasks—tickets to events, restaurant reservations, entry to red-hot clubs, and help in planning trips to Turkey and Italy—to test them.

First, I called Vertu, which outsources its services to two different providers. Half the time, calls from my (borrowed) Vertu phone were routed to Ten, a London-based service. When that shut down for the night, calls bounced to San Francisco, where another company called Les Concierges fielded my requests. This call-center setup caused a glitch when my initial question—what airlines fly to Izmir in Turkey—wasn't answered, as promised, by morning. It turned out that when I'd registered, the call-center operator got my e-mail address wrong. A day after that was cleared up, the information finally arrived, but later, a different concierge would get me tickets at a better price on an airline Vertu didn't know about. To its credit, Vertu did snag a hard-to-get reservation on the terrace outside Dal Bolognese, one of the best restaurants in Rome.

Next, I contacted Personal Concierge International, owned by Pascal Riffaud, who as a teenage page in a Paris hotel dreamed of being a concierge. After stints at the Ritz, London's InterContinental, and New York's Stanhope and St. Regis, he went out on his own, in 1995, with a handful of clients and access to the Clefs d'Or, the international society of concierges. Riffaud runs a niche business with only 125 clients. Could he do anything?I decided to test him by asking for a table at Rao's in New York, the Italian restaurant where, notoriously, no one can get fed unless they know one of the regulars who "own" the tables. (A friend told me that Quintessentially failed to get her in there.) Riffaud sighed heavily. "Rao's is impossible," he said. "They don't care who you are. Nobody can get you in." So I issued a set of daunting, but possible, challenges. I wanted a table at 9 p.m. on a weekend night at the just-opened Modern, then the hardest reservation to get in New York (when I'd called myself, I'd been told the only available tables were at 6 p.m.); tickets forSpamalot, the sold-out-for-months-in-advance Monty Python musical; a private tour of "Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries," the new exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History; and an invitation to the American Embassy's annual Fourth of July party in Rome.

Then, I called Quintessentially, which—thanks to its heavily hyped celebrity clientele (Madonna! Gwyneth! P. Diddy!) and its offices around the globe, from London to New York to Johannesburg—has become the best-known of all the concierge firms. I asked Rebecca, the cheerful, chirpy Brit assigned to me, to get me tickets and backstage passes for a sold-out Coldplay concert, a laissez-passer to swim in the rooftop pool at the private club Soho House, a reservation for six at the Spotted Pig gastro-pub in Greenwich Village (reportedly co-owned by Mario Batali, Michael Stipe, Fatboy Slim, Jay-Z, and Bono; it doesn't take reservations), a table at the velvet-rope nightclub Bungalow 8, and, finally, those Turkish plane tickets and a knowledgeable guide to the ancient ruined city of Ephesus. "We'd really like to see something special," I added—like closed areas of the excavation. Could Quintessentially do all that?

Once upon a time, people had wives or secretaries who performed concierge-style tasks. The end of sexism is a compelling explanation for the concierge explosion, but hardly the only one. Baby boomers, known for their sense of entitlement and lust for instant gratification, are also pushing the trend. However, those attitudes aren't confined to one generation. "People want to be recognized," says Vertu's Woolff. "They like to reward themselves. It feels good to have people do something for you."

A staffed life will cost you. Quintessentially and Personal Concierge International both charge annual fees—the former costs from $1,500 for a basic membership up to an invitation-only $3,500-a-month elite hand-holding service; the latter will set you back $4,000 a year. Preferred Group, where memberships start at $2,000 a month, is even more exclusive. "Some people pay more than that," says Ghobrial, who started his service in 1999 while working as a concierge at the Peninsula Beverly Hills. Like Riffaud, he has only four employees, who focus on 30 clients with a net worth of $100 million and up. "I tried the mass thing, but I don't speak that language." At the other end of the spectrum are mom-and-pop shops and more mainstream operations like Ten, which charges monthly fees starting at $130 for basic call-center service. Some private concierges take a commission on the transactions they handle. Others live on fees. Regardless, the best all say they aren't in it for money alone, and add that they pick and choose their clients with care. Mint Lifestyle "exited" a number of its initial clients, says Steven MacGeachy: "The 'Do you know who I am?' crowd who thump their fists and curse at the desk at restaurants."

"There are people you cannot make happy," Riffaud notes. But some things are just hard, like my request to be invited to the Fourth of July party in Rome. "That's a good one," Riffaud said when I asked. "I can get you into opening night at La Scala, if you'll pay. But not the embassy." And as things turned out, he couldn't get me into the party. "I blew it," he told me two weeks later, sounding devastated. I found myself trying to cheer him up. I had reason: He'd done a great job, snaring second-row balcony seats for Spamalot on a Saturday night (albeit for $150 above face value); a private guided tour of the dinosaur exhibit ($138); and a 9 p.m. table at the Modern on a Friday night.

Quintessentially, too, triumphed over and over. The Coldplay tickets were easy (and at $83 each, reasonable), though backstage was a no-go. Swimming at Soho House?"When would you like to go?" Rebecca asked. Bungalow 8 was a breeze, too—we were on the list, and once inside, we felt so taken care of that we didn't need the services of the club's in-house concierge. For a moment, it looked as if the table for six at 8 p.m. at the Spotted Pig wasn't going to happen. "Not likely," Rebecca muttered at first, but two days later, it was done. On arrival, though, Tim, the maître d', balked. "We don't take reservations—that was explained to the person who called," he said. "It could be 45 minutes." I went outside, oddly pleased that my concierge had failed. But through the window, I could see Tim talking on the phone, staring at us. And a moment later, he was outside. If the six of us would squeeze into a table for four, we could sit right away. Well into our meal, I asked what had changed. Was it Quintessentially? "Yes," Tim said. "They're friends of the house."

It somehow came as no surprise that the restaurant's managing partner later denied that any of this had happened, insisting that nobody ever gets preferred service, which goes to show that Quintessentially can make the impossible happen.

But it was the tour of Ephesus—orchestrated by Quintessentially—that did it for me. After our tour guide had shepherded us through the turnstiles, he told us to wait a moment, and returned with the chief archaeologist of Ephesus, who has worked at the Greco-Roman site for a quarter-century. He led us up a road past a panoramic view of the ruins, to what looked like a shed. He unlocked a door and we found ourselves standing within a vast enclosure, looking down on the sprawling hillside where the aristocrats of Ephesus once lived. The Terrace Houses, as they are called, are still undergoing excavation—and it will likely continue for years. What we saw—a hillside of splendid ancient homes, complete with fountains and in situmosaics, carvings, and frescoes—will stay hidden, awaiting the day when there's enough money to protect the ancient tessellated passages. On the way back to Izmir our guide explained that a portion of the fee we'd paid for the tour ($700) would help finance the ongoing preservation efforts. "Money can do many things," our guide said.

Certainly, it can buy what I want for my next birthday. A private concierge, thank you. And maybe somehow I'll manage to get that dinner at Rao's too.

MICHAEL GROSS is a contributing editor for T+L. His latest book, 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building (Broadway)

Source : By Michael Gross; http://www.travelandleisure.com