Shriram Finance’s Growth Play: Strong on MSMEs, Cautious on Unsecured Credit

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Mr. Chakravarti, thank you so much for joining me. So, let me start by going on a small or maybe a long walk through memory lane. So, tell us about the first loan that you ever gave and to whom?

So, I've started my career in the Chit Fund business in 1991, July, in a branch called Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. So, the first day I've joined, the first day was spent with, you know, briefing, then me looking at the Chit Fund Act, going through the Chit Fund Act, going through the customer, you know, agreements and all that. Then my then boss told me that there is this lady who has taken a 50,000 rupees chit and I need to go and write a report and get the documentation done.

So, I was wondering, I mean, 50,000 is…

Alot of money at that time..

Not a small amount of money at that point of time and I was wondering how a woman has taken this. So, I went. She was from a nearby village.

So, when I went to her place, the next day, obviously, I went to her place and the place is really busy. There were this, it is at her home, she was having this four big, wet grinders, big sized, churning out, different varieties of batter and then there are a couple of mills, one is churning out turmeric, one is chilli powder. And so, I sat with her and asked her, what is all this?

She said, she does it for a business. People bring the raw material and she churns it out into a batter and give it to them and she charges so much for each kilo. Similarly, for turmeric and chillies.

So, I sat with her, took out my notebook and asked her how many people, how many kgs she does normally and all that. Then I actually literally sat with her and did her cash flow statement, a kind of a P&L and a kind of a balance sheet, sat there with her to understand and then I asked her, what, why do you need this money for? She is obviously, she has put a down payment for two more machines and she wanted to buy them.

And her son is in college. Daughter is also going to college and she is supporting the whole family and unfortunately her husband past away. I was so impressed with the enterprise, entrepreneurial attitude of that lady and everybody is coming to her.

She is chatting with everyone, she is so friendly and the whole neighbourhood, the village knows that kind of a thing. The learning for me from that actually was that how important it is to understand why your customer needs money, how much does he need and why and what is the cash flow to repay the money. And it still stayed in my memory.

In fact, her son went on to become a telecom engineer. I was in touch with him for a long time.

Then the second customer I met, interesting story, he has already taken the money, but he is not paying. So, I went and met him. The guy is again an engineer in R&B, roads and buildings department, senior position, not a small position. He is not paying.

So, I asked him, sir, you are educated, you are in a very responsible position. How come you are not paying? He says, I do not know, Mr. Chakravarty. Somehow, once you take the money, you do not feel like giving it back. You know, two spectrums of people. Here this lady is struggling and paying very regularly and this guy has a very cushy job and says, you do not feel like repaying.

So, I mean, my first two, three days of that working itself has given me an insight into people's psychology, probably mentality and how people think, different people.

And how has the company grown? I mean, so you said this started in Nellore and Shriram was a small company then. Chitfund was a small company.

So, we were big in Tamil Nadu at that point in time, but the combined state of Andhra Pradesh at that point of time had only 8-10 branches.

During 1992-1993, they have deputed from Chennai a gentleman called Mr. Durvasan. I would say he was the fulcrum around which the entire business of Telangana and Andhra, what it is today, has grown.

He is an extraordinary guy. He has done his degree in a night college, but his ability to judge people, judge people's capabilities, strengths and weaknesses and push on the strengths and do not talk about weakness. Weakness everybody has. Let us see what the strength this guy has and then push those strengths. He is extraordinary.

And I mean, no college can, no professional college or nothing can teach you like that. He started his career as a collection boy and the way he inspired us was terrific. And I think, you know, working with, along with him, I worked with, along with him for 30 years. It was an education in itself, anyway.

So, with that, we were able to build a very strong team there and from these 8 branches, it became 185 branches and we have actually doubled our turnover compared to our counterparts in Tamil Nadu within next 8-9 years. So, the business has grown and has become one of the backbones for the Shriram group there.

And Shriram was always, or at least sitting here in Mumbai, where you are also now, and I am going to ask you about that, was always synonymous with truck finance or more synonymous with truck finance. So, how did that happen?

So typically, but south, except for these two states, yes, these two states, you go and ask Shriram, they will say chit fund business, chit fund. But truck finance, because Mr. Thyagarajan, who is our founder, when he was working for New India Insurance, he used to go around, he used to work in Guntur, which is a big hub for transportation, because it is tobacco, chilli, then cotton, big market for all this, commodities market and a lot of truckers. So, when he tried to go and get the insurance from the truckers, he has realised that these truckers are borrowing at exorbitant rates from private money lenders.

And I think he has discovered cross-selling way back then, because then it struck him that if he can fund the customers, truck owners, at a reasonable rate compared to the private financiers, probably he can get their insurance premium. That is how his whole idea started.

And he has also realised that contrary to the perception of a market and banks, say a truck owner, he has always believed that a truck owner will pay him payback on time, maybe one or two months cash flow mismatch, but he will pay because it is an earning asset, you are funding an earning asset and the truck has to be on the road, because most of the time the used trucks are owned by people who have become owners from a driver. They are running small businesses, it is a small business end of the day, and for him to feed his family, the truck has to be on the road. So, it is an earning, constantly earning asset.

And he is the guy who is managing the asset. So, he always felt that it is the best business to be in when you fund an earning asset. So, the concept of not funding for consumption, but for funding assets which earn a return was there right from the day the group is born.

So, it is similar to the lady who was grinding turmeric for making batter, it is an earning asset.

Exactly. So, he started funding this and then formalised it and we became synonymous with used truck financing. I think to a large part, Mr. Thyagarajan has to be credited with getting the rates, interest rates down for used trucks. And also for getting the organised sector into this business, where people were, people were actually, banks were not willing to fund, even when we started this, banks were not willing to refinance, it was a struggle to raise money to fund these truckers.

But I think the first people who have realised this and that this is a good model and needs support was from people from Citibank. And later on, the private equity people also understood this. And by that time, banks also slowly started funding financiers of used trucks.

The rest is history.

So, when you look at Sriram Finance, because I know this is an amalgamated version of several companies over the years and businesses. What are the top four or five business verticals today?

I'll give you a small synopsis on why it is amalgamated actually. Mr. Thyagarajan believed that the country is too big to be run by one individual. Because if you really want to expand, he thought that we should have people focussing on each region.

So, it was region and not vertical?

Yeah. At a point of time, we had four regions, four companies, headquartered out of Chennai, Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi, all doing truck finance.

But then, yeah, due to exchanges, the private equity players coming in and they are looking at size and say, I mean, within the group, four companies competing with each other. And out of that, three are listed. So, it does not make sense.

So, it was the consolidation has taken place. Today, if you look at the group as a whole, Shriram Finance is the largest piece. Then you have Shriram General Insurance, which is into non-life insurance, and then Shriram Life Insurance.

Apart from these three, we have a company called Shriram Credit, under which we have an asset management company, we have a stockbroking company, and we have a wealth management company. So, these are the broad financial services for companies in the group.

For example, if you said you had about 34,000 crores of income last year, what would be the top three streams? I know it is all interest income.

For the Shriram Finance?

Yeah.

Obviously, the biggest chunk is the truck finance still. Biggest chunk is truck finance, which is about 47% of the book. Trucks followed by MSME funding.

Then we have two wheeler finance and gold. Gold is a smaller portion. Gold and a small portion of personal loans, which is about 3% of the AEM, which is 95% of it is again directed to our existing customers. We do not do market PL much.

In terms of systems and approach, would truck financing be similar to MSME lending or is that?

On a fundamental level, both are businessmen. IEA is running a small business. He is an entrepreneur.

He is running his business. Similarly here, the only thing is probably it is easier to look at a truck and fund it because you are funding an asset, which is on the road and running and easy to assess the viability of a truck business compared to an MSME. When you are funding an MSME, you also have to look at the guy's ability to run the business, the profitability of the business, which is slightly more difficult compared to assessing a truck.

Not easy. Since most of us are focused on micro and small enterprises and for most of these people, they have no idea of how to run a business. So you need to work with them, make them understand if the business is making money, business is losing money.

So you need to work with them to understand their cash flows and also their issues and then handhold them.

So if you look at the last four years, maybe including the post-COVID phenomenon, what are the temptations that you have given into and not given into?

This business, we are working with people's money. It is not my own money or a company's own money. We are working on borrowed money, which we have borrowed from banks, from public in forms of deposit or overseas.

So no temptations here. No room for temptation. It is all cold logic.

Unsecured credit?

No temptation. Our unsecured credit is still very limited.

It has been a temptation for many people in the last few years.

See, I think it's easy to probably some of them succumb to that temptation because it's easy to do and maybe easy to scale up your AEM or whatever. But somehow, see again, as I said, the fundamental principle of the group itself is not to increase consumption. So when your philosophy itself is not to increase consumption, so there is no…

Why would you fund it? 

So that's one. Second, see there is a difference between private credit and a business credit in unsecured. Unfortunately, most people tend to put them together.

It's not. Me borrowing a 10 lakh rupees for a holiday, foreign holiday, versus me borrowing a 10 lakh rupees for buying a missionary for my business is totally different. So unfortunately, when you say unsecured credit, both are put in the same bracket. It should not be. So we never got tempted into getting into this side of the business.

So in a frequent board meeting or a regular board meeting, I'm sure this comes up or has come up and people say that, listen, yes, you're a traditional company for various reasons, including culture. Here are the areas that you're sticking to and doing well, which could be drug finance or maybe even gold. The gold too has its interesting ups and downs in recent part.

But why don't you look at this sector, which is unsecured consumer credit, which is growing like anything. You have at least two or three players who seem to be going gangbusters. Their stock price is going through the roof. So why aren't you doing it? So how do you respond to that at that point?

I think fortunately for us, most of the board that we have are also very conservative like us. They are also bankers. A lot of them are bankers over a period of time, not just the current board, other board members earlier also.

They understood the philosophy. And see, sometimes when you look at those numbers, you think, wow, these guys are doing a beautiful job, a great job. In fact, we tried in the sense when we started retail finance business, we didn't know where to start.

So for the first couple of years, we did consumer credit, then stopped it because in fact, unfortunately, I was the one who pulled the plug on it. Because I didn't like the business. It is high churn.

You need a lot of, actually technology is needed and also very high churn. The third point I didn't like about the business is that the argument that I'm acquiring a customer, I'm using this business to acquire a customer, I will cross sell a lot of other products to him tomorrow is something that somehow it didn't gel with me and my board agreed with me and we pulled the plug. Though I was only the business head at that point of time, fortunately, they all agreed with me.

Do I regret it? Maybe, but because of that pulling the plug, we have actually focused our energies more on to MSME and the two-wheeler business. Now, there are also questions where people say a two-wheeler is also a consumption, but no, I mean, I totally disagree with it.

Probably about enabling for business or work.

Only about 5% of the people buy it for joy rides. See, for the rest of the people, it's an essential, it's for a salaried guy, for him to go to office. Forget about Mumbai, tell me how many cities in this country has an efficient public transport system.

If you do not own a two-wheeler, you cannot reach your office. One, two, even my two-wheeler customers, 65% are self-employed. Could be your plumber, your electrician or your milkman, your vegetable man, they need it, it is essential for their life.

So, I mean, we are also representing to the RBI and the government saying, please declare two-wheeler lending as a priority sector lending. It's not a luxury, two-wheeler is not a luxury. And unfortunately, it is also taxed at 28%, which a car is.

But when you say 65% goes to self-employed, is that a metric that you're watching and adjusting for or is it incidental?

No, we don't. But I think if you look at my last 10 years of portfolio, it stayed there. So, probably because you always been probably away from the metros and urban.

Basically, my majority of my branches and business comes from semi-urban and rural area and that's where most of the self-employed people also are there, small businessmen, small... I think it's probably our DNA that made us gravitate towards it.

So, let me ask you a question in the context of technology. So, your own experience, your own lived experience is dealing with people, getting a pulse of whether they will repay or not, what are their businesses, how are they earning and maybe even seeing the place that they're earning, their families and everything. So, you have a good sense on what's that person's desire to repay, ability to repay and so on.

And today you're in a world and for some years now where it's entirely technology driven and some of your competitors, for example, or anyone is very technology intensive in deciding who the customer is, what we should lend, everything happens online. How do you blend both these worlds? I know a lot of your business may not need that kind of technology, but how are you blending those worlds?

Yes and no. See, to your answer that we may not need, but we do need some of it. So, for me, when we were started debating on technology a few years back, fundamentally my first task to our tech team was... I mean, when people are asking, where are you on the digital world?

I said, for me, digital world is if I am able to get my customer, if I can deliver credit faster to my customer, take my decision faster and make my customer's life easier, not only to get credit, but also throughout his journey, that is what is digital for me. Similarly, for my team, if the decision making can be aided and they can do a faster turnaround for the customer, that is digital for me. I am looking at making life easier for both my team and for my customer and that if the digital can do it, that is what I mean.

The digital was what our thinking brief and that is how we worked. See, today it is easier. We also are trying to move to a slightly one step above the core customer base that we service.

So, if you are moving one step above, that means you have GST returns, you have IT, you have either balance sheets and all that. The technology today is helping us actually to pass their bank statements, to pass their GST returns, understand what is the turnover that is happening, whether the turnover is getting reflected in the bank statements or not. So, all this lot of mundane manual work is getting done by the tools that we employ.

As a result, I am actually today in majority of my transactions, if it is a secure transaction, except the lawyer's opinion on the property and probably a mortgage of the property, other than those two, I have zero paperwork, which actually also, you know, today in the new thinking about green and all, probably they are saving, also saving a lot of paper. But it is also helping us to do, the turnaround time is getting shorter and it is helping us to deliver the credit better to the customer. As for the customer, not only he is getting the credit faster, today he is able to, you know, if he wants to track his account, look at other products, everything is available on an app that we have built.

So, for me, it is an enabler, it is not a decision maker. I will only use technology to help me to make a decision faster and quicker, but I will not depend it on, okay, the machine has spoken, so I will do it.

Or customer acquisition, you said customer acquisition, cross selling, those are not things that you are…

We do, we do.

No, I know you do, but I am saying not as aggressively as maybe some of your peers.

See, we, I will put it this way, if I have to cross sell something to my customer, I would like to keep in touch with the customer and look at his income much more closely than just rely on his repayment track record of a few months and then lend him, lend to him. I believe the relationships that we build because of this way, may be more cumbersome, more expensive than acquiring these customers through a digital mode. But the kind of relationships you build, they last a lifetime.

People do not move. In fact, a lot of my customers, though they know that they may be able to get credit at probably slightly lower rates, do not move because the kind of comfort that they have built with people and the organisation, they do not mind paying that extra for that comfort. And that is where I want us to be.

So, that is, that cannot be replaced by, you know, just simple technology.

So, and what could have been, what could be the typical transition? So, let us say, truck owner becomes a larger truck owner along with maybe a small enterprise or who maybe is taking goods to a small enterprise and they all continue to come back to you for newer loans.

See, no, I would not say all. Typically, what we would try to do is when the truck owner, we typically fund truck owners under five trucks, small road transport operators. So, as they grow by size, one is we do not, we are also looking at the exposure that we have per customer. Number two, probably they will be better off if they transition to a place where they get at a much lower rate.

Today, banks are also aggressively lending for new trucks. And if the customer wants to upgrade to new trucks, maybe one or two trucks I can fund him. But anything beyond that, I normally we suggest them to go to a bank because it is beneficial for his business and also he is getting it at a lower rate.

And that is a rate that I cannot offer because of my inherent cost of funds. So, we actually advise them to go to a bank and borrow from there. So, people transition.

That keeps happening. But there are too many, there are a lot more many people at the bottom

Who are entering

to come up the chain.

Yeah. So, and you talked about cost since cost is kind of current issue right now. So, the Reserve Bank of India recently reduced its risk weightages after having increased them in November 23.

Now, that was done obviously to tighten the system earlier. So, it loosened it for various reasons, maybe new governor, whatever the reason is. How did that period affect you if at all? And how do you see things now?

See, honestly, for the larger companies, it was not an issue. Fund availability was not an issue. Maybe the cost would have gone up by 10 basis points, 10 to 15 basis points at best.

But the smaller NBFCs have definitely had, it had an impact on the smaller NBFCs. They found it hard to raise money. Banks were not lending to them and whatever was available has become expensive, a little more expensive for them.

So, the larger ones, not much of an impact. Smaller ones, definitely there was an impact. The move of reducing the risk weights today may not translate into a reduction of cost immediately.

But what it does is it gives a signal that liquidity will be available for the smaller NBFCs also now, which is a good welcome sign. Because the industry as a whole, the NBFC industry as a whole is needed for this country where credit delivery is still patchy. A lot of underbanked, underserved population is still there and it needs the initiative of private enterprises.

So, you have 3000 branches. And how do you see that? Do you see the number of branches growing?

What's the rationale for, let's say, growing branches today? I mean, I know there is one, but what is the rationale for growing branches for an NBFC today? And how do you blend that with, let's say, the work that's going on in the digital side?

See, a large part of our population, though they have remarkable change in the last 7-8 years, thanks to our lowest data charges in the world, they're also becoming digital savvy. But still, a large part still feels comfortable meeting somebody, talking to them. So, physical will not go away for us.

But on the digital side, we are working on it. Wherever the customer feels that he wants to transact on a digital platform, we are available. For me, probably, we'll still open some more branches because there are states we are still underpenetrated.

For example, UP, we need to open. UP is a country by itself. So, we need to open probably UP some more branches, NP some more branches, Rajasthan.

I mean, otherwise, the rest of the states are fairly well-penetrated. So, I think other states, we may not expand much. But these are the states that we would still like to open branches.

The other point is, we would like to push our focus on the loan against jewellery business. For that, you definitely need physical presence. Rest of the businesses, you may not need so many physical branches for some of the other businesses, but used truck and gold loan, you need physical presence.

So, that will continue. So, gold prices are at record highs now. So, has that changed anything or affected anything?

People are borrowing more for the same gramme of gold. Other than that, nothing much. But then, you need to be careful because too sharp a run-up can also impact tomorrow if there is a fall. So, you need to be careful in your lending.

So, when you look at, let's say, the next couple of years and given where the economy is today, where do you see the growth coming from in the kind of verticals that you operate? So, assuming trucks will grow with the economy or commercial vehicle purchase will grow with the economy, plus or minus GDP. Consumer loans could shoot up or down, depending on maybe some other factors.

So, there's a specific and a general question. So, the specific question is, what do you see moving in this? But if you were to look back, let's say, 20-30 years, what are the has a large impact on it?

GDP has a large impact on this. Truck, again, more than one is the GDP growth. Second is the focus on infrastructure built up by the government and, of course, private sector also. So, after the private sector has slowed down, but somehow it was saved by the government spending on infra.

Hopefully, both of them will make a comeback. I think, see, people are talking about it right now that the entire, I mean, a lot of the economy is dependent on our MSMEs in the country. But see, these two sectors, basically the trucks and the MSME, you are involved for the last 30 years.

MSME, though, whether it is in the chit fund business or in our lending business, you're always, the customers were always small businessmen. So, when bank credit was very difficult to come by, the chit fund business actually has helped lot of small entrepreneurs. In fact, I'm still in touch with some of my customers in chit fund, early customers in chit fund, who are now doing maybe about anywhere from 700 to 5,000 crores of turnovers today or more.

What were they when they started, when you first?

Very small. They were finding it difficult.

There was an entrepreneur who was running a small hotel. Today, he runs a chain of hotels in Andhra. Andhra and Telangana both.

And there was some contractor today, who is one of the biggest contractors in the country. It's like, you know.

They are not GMR or GVK.

No, no, no, not GMR and GVK.But there are others. It's like, of course, they have also transitioned out. But for sentiment sake, some of them still, come and join.

They just join one chit. It's a sentiment that they have that their business, they've taken money from Shriram and it is good for their business.

What you're saying is, they were maybe a crore or two then and are 700 to 1,000 crores today.

What I'm trying to get at is, these are the two fulcrums that the economy depends on today, your transportation sector and your MSMEs. This is what has stood by us all these years and also probably going forward. See, services economy is fine.

But then the service economy can also, you know, your service economy, the white collar service economy can only provide so much of jobs. But rest of the population, for them to get employed gainfully, the MSMEs have to survive in this country. Your large industries need very large outlay of money and per job, I've read this sometime back that to create a job of one job in a manufacturing sector, big manufacturing sector, you need an investment of at least 7 to 8 crores.

That is what, this is sometime back, probably it is higher now. Whereas MSMEs are providing those kind of employment at a much, you know, larger scale and smaller investments, which needs to be encouraged. So, which I think will remain pivotal to the growth going forward also.

I think one more, I think one of the saving grace for India is also that economy, where none of the most of these guys are not even there on the radar of your tax or anything, but there's so much of productivity there, which is unaccounted for or whatever. So, I think last 25 years, if you look at, I mean, my evolution as a from a trainee to whatever I am, I think this is also, I've grown along with the economy, with people and the company. So, these are the two mainstay products that we were involved in and these two have grown and are growing.

So, you talked about the two first examples. What's an example that comes to mind of, let's say, something that has informed you in what not to do or let's say, you know, say, okay, this is, you know, all your experience has taught you that this is something that we should stay away from. And I think you've talked about broadly about consumer credit and that's a fair point, but is there a life, I mean, something that you've encountered, something that you've experienced where you say, okay, this has taught me a lesson for life?

So, as I was talking to you about Mr. Durvasan so this has happened in one of our lending, a customer case where the guy is a money lender. So, this happened in my chit fund business only. The guy is a money lender.

He has borrowed a chit from us, 10 lakh chit, which is actually the highest available at that point of time, big money. So, he used to come to the office and I was managing 5-6 branches. So, this was in my, in the branch where I was sitting.

So, he used to come regularly, come pay, chat for 10-15 minutes and then go. A familiarity has developed with him. Basically, familiarity in the sense, he comes and talks to you about what is happening in the market and all that.

So, you think, okay, this guy is balanced. So, when we are releasing the money, a fundamental, I mean, Mr. Durvasan told me that do not give this to money lenders. It's a risk because this guy in turn will lend this to other people and if he has a default there, he will default you and we cannot afford a default of this kind of a long term.

I said, no, no, no, he is a very capable guy. He will collect from people no matter what and he will pay us. I overruled, I mean, not overruled, I cannot overrule my boss, but I said, this is my stand, I will release the money.

And the third month that guy failed after taking the money. So, when I went in search for him, the guy was absconding. Then when I enquired around, people said, no, he has borrowed a lot of money because he has lent a lot of money.

He is not able to recover that and because of, he has also borrowed from other people to lend to these guys, because of the pressure of the other guys, he just vanished. So, if you, so then I have also understood how important it is to understand the sector that each person is working. I know that, see, fundamentally I understand that we need to understand the guy's cash flow and business, but you are so confident that he is lending money and he is only at a higher rate, so he has a margin.

Then I understood that the end customer who is borrowing at that rate will not be able to repay him. So, it was some of those kind of lessons stay with you and the best part of it is after the fail. When I went back and met Mr. Durvasan, he made me sit and go through the whole exercise and made me realise where I made a mistake. See, there was no drama, no shouting, no I told you so. It was like, okay, this is the mistakes you made. Make sure next time we are not repeating it and the responsibility of, it is your responsibility, now you go down and, you know, tell your people your experience on why this has happened.

So, the culture of Shriram itself is like that. So, basically, I mean, the way the group is built is, Mr. Thyagarajan is also like that. He came to know of it and he said it is cost of learning.

So, let me ask you a last question. So, a lot of young people join finance and there are many aspects of finance. There is the exotic part, you could be in venture capital, private equity, maybe less exotic general finance and maybe the least exotic is maybe where you are.

Money lender.

Lending money. So, what would you tell young people who are maybe wanting a career in finance today? I think some of those principles you've already brought out, but what would you tell them, why should they do it? I think that's one question. And secondly, if they do so, what should they come in expecting or not expecting?

See, for me, my personal experience for me is, this is one place where if you are interested, you meet variety of people, you can study human behaviour, human psychology, you can also look at variety of businesses, understand each aspect of business. So, how is it useful to you in a career? Probably from here, I mean, if you are able to understand and analyse a business, you know, across sectors, you meet customers across sectors, across the country, which will give you a very unique insight into the economy, into how people manage their finances, into how to read people, which I think will make you a very, very balanced individual.

If you choose from here, you can go anywhere, your end of the day, you go to a VC player or you go to a private equity guy, end of the day, they're all making decisions based on their reading of business. But here, this will give you a first-hand experience of how business works, not reading balance sheets and reports, but by reading businesses directly. So, I think this is a very full, if you have the patience in the first four or five years to build a career, it will be very rewarding.

And you feel that finance is going to continue hiring people and so on, I mean, AI is not going to eat up half of it.

So, finance, no way, because as long as the world survives, money is needed, people need money. And as long as people need money, there is need for finance, finance professionals. People needed money from even before Jesus Christ was born and it will go on.

But yeah, one thing is, maybe nowadays people are thinking a little respectfully about finance professionals. But then, there used to be a very kind of a negative feeling towards a finance professional or a lending person earlier, though everybody needs money.

That also goes back to history, I think.

Everybody needs money, but they don't like to be indebted to somebody. So, they don't like a money lender. Boring business, but finance has to be boring.

It can't be exciting. Please understand this. This cannot be exciting or an adventurous business or work you will be in.

This has to be boring. And you should think VC is, I mean, if young people, as you said, think that VC or private equity all are exciting. No, they are boring businesses.

People don't get it. They have spent hundreds of hours poring through balance sheets, poring through reports. But at least here you end up meeting people.

It's a boring business. That's the way it has to be. Finance can't be an adventurous business.

We've run out of time. Thank you very much.