Planning for higher education for children forms a major aspect of financial planning for most households, especially if you plan to send your children overseas for higher education due to the sheer costs involved when looking at a degree from top global institutes.
The fourth episode of Let’s Mint Money, presented in collaboration with Groww Mutual Fund, saw the Editor (Personal Finance) at Mint, Neil Borate and Jash Kriplani, Senior Assistant Editor at Mint Money, in conversation with Dalveer Singh, a Mumbai-based media, advertising and marketing veteran who has just retired after a 33-year-long career and is educating both his sons abroad. He was joined by his financial advisor, Suresh Sadagopan, the Founder of Ladder7 Wealth Planners Private Limited.
Watch the full episode here,
Singh’s family includes his wife Arti, an artist and naturalist, elder son Aryan, a Stanford graduate, and younger son Jugnu, who is studying liberal arts and design at UBC. The 56-year-old started his financial planning journey about two decades ago when he moved to Jakarta for a two-year stint.
“I had to give up my Ogilvy ESOPs, and that amount had to be invested. And that was my first exposure to financial planning. The next one happened when I came back here. When I was in Jakarta, I got introduced to what sort of planning one needs to do to send kids to foreign universities, and there was the need to have somebody to partner with you to help build that corpus,” Singh said.
The posting to Jakarta was an eye-opener for the family – they realised they needed to start investing if they wanted their children to study overseas. Their boys were three years and eight months old at the time. “For me and Aarti, educating our sons was our first priority. It was not buying a dream house but giving kids access to the best education in the best institutes. And that is when the financial planning came,” he said.
Both boys went to IB schools after Grade 10, and the focus was clear: they would study abroad. He returned to join Reliance Capital, which gave him exposure to financial markets and the world of Mutual Funds. He invested in Portfolio Management Services (PMS). With the passing years, the returns became less attractive, and Singh decided to exit. This is when Sadagopan and his team came into the picture and introduced him to the myriad services and products that are available for investors.
“Education abroad is always a costly exercise. When we got introduced, Dalbir’s son was already studying overseas, and the younger one was to go soon. So, one of the primary things we had to plan for was enough liquidity at all times and tax efficiency, too. That is the primary focus even today. His portfolio has a fair amount of money in pass-through debt, like arbitrage, really short-term funds and the like, which we can withdraw at short notice,” Sadagopan said.
Singh's first priority was to provide for his son’s education, but he also wanted to retire early. “When we met, close to about 50 per cent was equity, close to about 25 per cent was real estate, and close to about 18-20 per cent was my ESOPs, and then there was Employment Provident Fund,” said Singh.
So, while he had the funds, his financial planner needed to manage them properly to ensure that both goals could be met simultaneously. He also had a significant allocation to real estate, which had to be brought down to bring greater liquidity.
“We also looked at the overall portfolio. We have no affinity for any particular product. We are focused on what is good from the client’s point of view. From that point of view, the data, in general, suggests that mutual funds are doing reasonably well compared to a PMS. There is no concentration risk in a mutual fund. And you can diversify, which is a bit difficult in the case of a PMS. So, we did some bit of spring cleaning. We also brought enough money into debt,” Sadagopan further said.
In terms of loans, Singh said he has never taken a loan, except for a car loan. He financed the real estate, including an apartment in Mumbai, an apartment in Gurgaon and a farmhouse in Delhi.
“I was lucky that none of the assets have been bad assets. I had a fairly good, regular income, which helped me sail through these 3-4 big events. I still need to buy my dream house,” Singh said. He plans to stay in different cities over the next few years to decide where they would build that – all they know is that they want to be closer to nature.
To take care of his ongoing expenses post-retirement, he accounted for a 12-16 month buffer into the planning process. There was also an upside in the ESOPs deployed into different assets. “The 12-16 month corpus plus the ESOPs will see us through till the end of December 2025 and we will also continue with our SIPs. And, only after December 25 will you start withdrawing from debt instruments,” Singh said.
The major life events they now foresee coming are expenses towards post-graduation for the boys, their weddings and Singh and his wife settling down into their dream home after retirement. They also want to give back to society and start something which will keep them engaged for the next 25 years. Their retirement plan also factors in the funds they would need.“All that is built into the plan Suresh and team have created,” Singh said.
“Dalveer Singh’s story highlights the importance of thoughtful financial planning. By reshaping his portfolio across equities, debt, and real estate, he achieved milestones like funding his sons' overseas education and progressing toward retirement goals,” said Varun Gupta, CEO Groww Asset Management Ltd.
Gupta added, “As he nears retirement, gradually increasing equity exposure with careful risk management could open doors to growth opportunities and secure his financial journey ahead.”
