Five Kashmiris the world should know
In the political and economic chaos that is Kashmir, BT discovers some entrepreneurs who have found a way to thrive.
No, not the Sher-e-Kashmir's grandson, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Not Rahul Gandhi, prime-minister-in-waiting, who is one-fourth Kashmiri. Or the anti-India Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The Kashmiris the world should know are the businessmen who keep the state going despite the civil chaos. They make cement, process milk and even write code for clients. They are young and middle-aged, B-school educated and high-school dropouts, second-generation traders and start-ups.
Beyond the denominators common to Indian business, such as red tape, bad infrastructure or ambiguous policies, Kashmir's entrepreneurs have their unique problems. For one, customers from other states who buy goods and services made in the Valley often refuse to transfer payments directly to accounts in the state. They are wary of getting linked unwittingly to a terror group.
Then, on an average, traders have to pull down shutters fi ve days a week either at the diktat of some political group or because of a curfew. No school, shop or enterprise dares remain open. The men in uniform or young lads pelting stones wield enormous nuisance power.
All this leads to undependable supply and delivery chains and gives businesses in the state a reputation for unreliability that prevents them from expanding outside the state. Few consultants, investment bankers, private equity investors or head-hunters service companies in the Valley. Recruiting is tough: Bright graduates either migrate to other states or opt for the security of a government job even if it means lower pay. Work culture and professionalism have not had a chance to develop. "We are at least 30 years behind the Indian corporate sector," says Umar Trumboo, Director of the hospital-to-cement Khyber Group.
High-risk, high-returns are two sides of the coin. Successful ventures can be very profi table. The market within the state does not see much competition, so business can be lucrative. Part of the reason is also that capital, whether loans or equity, is easy to come by in the Valley. Real estate prices are up 30-35 times since the 1980s. But rich Kashmiris prefer to invest these gains mostly in ventures outside the Valley, for security.
Those who choose to do business in Kashmir are extraordinary because they too could have made the choice to leave the Valley but have not so far. They are battling ground realities and make business seem as usual.
BT presents five of them.
Nisar A. Baba
Like many businessmen in the Valley, Nisar A. Baba is a third-generation trader. Baba's family had been trading in transformers and electrical equipment for two generations when he decided to set up a factory in 2002 to manufacture transformers for sub-stations.
His business plan was perfect: there were few transformer manufacturers in the state, capital and land were cheap and it was not too hard to get the small numbers of skilled labourers. Also, governments are liberal with subsidies and tax breaks.
So Baba's business, Alba Power, is profitable. But, eight years after it was set up, Alba Power has been unable to get on to the national stage, barring a few orders from Rajasthan. Alba Power's biggest worry is its production schedule. To plan for disruptions, it has to maintain big inventories. It is also hard to get technicians from outside the state.
The bureaucracy is indifferent at best. "The babus in the Valley do not recognise the importance of business," says Baba. As for government incentives, Baba says they have riders that are fine for other states but have no meaning in Kashmir, and figuring and complying with them is frustrating. "Sometimes I wish there were no incentives," Baba rues. Even the exemption from value-added tax or VAT? Yes. Baba points out that, to be eligible for the exemption, 90 per cent of a unit's staff have to be locals and it is impossible to hold on to Kashmiri engineers. Businesses fail so frequently that any engineer or doctor is ready to quit the private sector for a government job even if it means a huge pay cut. Businesses have to bring in people from outside the state on short contracts at higher rates.
Then, Alba Power's working capital could be cheaper but for the rule that the subsidy on the interest will be given only in a year of growing production. Baba reckons that Alba lost `9 lakh as the subsidy it would have received had it not been forced this summer to stop production. Jammu & Kashmir has a unique tax on contracts that costs Alba Power its business and limits its market.
Contractors buying transformers have to pay a contract tax and the VAT. This contract tax may be credited against the VAT only if the equipment has been bought from outside the state. "I have to be content selling my produce only to government departments and traders," says Baba. He often wonders if he would be better off moving out of the Valley. "The only reason I haven't moved out is that I am not giving in," he says.
Fayaz Bhat
The terror-marred 1990s had just ended and the Valley was quiet. Kashmiris around the world wanted to help their state, and five such friends in the United States, all software engineers, began dreaming. Fayaz Bhat, also a techie, hooked in from Yemen. Their idea: Set up a software firm in Srinagar that would be among the world's best. They pooled their savings and deputed Bhat to go home and set up the business. Bhat leased land at an electronics complex outside Srinagar.
As the unit itself was taking time to be built, he set up shop in a Srinagar market, in December 2004. Musky Software Solutions was ready to do business - but there was a problem. Clients equated Kashmir with tourism, not information technology. "IT was for Bangalore, they felt," recalls Bhat, the Chief Operating Officer. Stiff competition from Bangalore and the emerging small towns did not help. Musky tried to get work from government departments but gave up. "The officials could not visualise the value of our deliverables," says Bhat. Orders began to trickle in only after a network of friends and then satisfied clients pitched in with referrals.
The client list grew to spread into sectors such as health care, banking and the social sector, from the United States to Africa. Musky Software also suffers from the state's image: clients abroad do not want to hand over money to a company in Kashmir. So agents abroad take the contract and farm it out to Musky.
The frequent hartals and curfews are Bhat's constant nightmare. This summer, when businesses had to shut down for up to five days a week, Musky did not give in. It put up its programmers in makeshift dormitories at the unit for five days every week as they worked. On weekends, when curfew was relaxed, they went home.
The women engineers were not so lucky. Kashmir was not ready to see women staying overnight at the workplace and all of them quit this summer. Bhat often picks up his employees personally during times of curfew. On one such occasion, he told a couple of programmers to wait at a children's hospital, which he was scheduled to visit during curfew with the permission of the administration. However, there are things he cannot control, like the time when a broadband service provider refused to send its staff out during curfew to repair a snag. On such occasions, Musky begs its clients for time and even uses wireless data cards for connectivity.
Not many entrepreneurs risk investing in the Valley, and hardly any of the companies hire from campuses in Kashmir. Here lies Musky's advantage. It is able to hold its billing rates low and yet get a profit margin of up to 40 per cent as its salary costs are a fraction of the industry average outside Kashmir. When it started, Musky could recruit potential programmers for just Rs 1,000 a month.
Musky now has plans to open shop in Bangalore, and scale up to 300 employees by 2015. It already has a 30-member back-up team in Jammu. It is funding the expansion with its profits.
Shafat Ahmad Shah
He broke even within three months of setting up the business, and has managed to grab 30 per cent of the market in three years, making use of the very disruptions that hit his rival this summer.
Shafat Ahmad Shah's Zum Zum Dairy in Pulwama's industrial growth centre at Lassipora, 50 km from Srinagar, seems to have everything going for it, and Shah's office itself has a view to die for: the snow-covered peaks of the Pir Panjal range. But not everything is great. Shah has his panic moments: such as when police officers "hijacked" one of his milk delivery trucks. (They later returned the truck, minus 500 litres duly paid for.)
Shah leaves home every day at 5 a.m. to beat Kashmir's notorious stone pelters and curfews. Driving his Scorpio through Pulwama's broken roads, Shah looks more like a huntsman than an entrepreneur. "I do it for adventure and challenge," says Shah, a second-generation textile trader who quit studies after completing high school and set up Zum Zum Dairy in 2007 "to prove himself". A dairy in Mumbai that Shah happened to visit 15 years ago had impressed him and he resolved to open one in Kashmir some day. He did not hire any consultants or experts for setting up the plant. Instead he Googled, visited Punjab a couple of times and booked the equipment. The suppliers set it up.
At full capacity, Zum Zum can handle 25,000 litres of milk a day. For now, it processes 17,000 litres a day, which it procures from chilling stations in Punjab and about a thousand farmers in neighbouring villages. It cornered a big chunk of the market when this summer's troubles hit operations at his rival. Shah tells his people that unless the plant operates, Zum Zum will not be able to pay them their wages. So Zum Zum's supply and procurement trucks run even during curfews and hartals. The price Zum Zum pays to farmers depends on the fat content of milk. Zum Zum's average rate, Rs 15 a kg, is nearly double that paid by milkmen to farmers. The controlled price of processed milk is 40 per cent higher, but the market for it is expanding fast. Balancing erratic milk supplies with steadily rising demand is not easy but Zum Zum has introduced packaged curd and is lining up to sell skimmed milk.
Help has also come from the Industries and Commerce Department. Zum Zum's success has attracted proposals for more dairies. Officials of the Lassipora growth centre are trying to dissuade the herd mentality. "The market and procurement situation cannot take another dairy," says the officer in charge. Stone pelters do not spare the industrial estate. But when they come to attack the Zum Zum plant, Shah talks them out of their rage. "I tell them they would earn savab or good deeds by allowing an essential service to carry on," says Shah.
Farooq Amin
Farooq Amin first got into the family business when he was just 16, spending his winter vacations chatting up the owners of kirana shops and stores in Srinagar, Baramullah and Sopore. Amin Senior had figured it would be a good introduction for his son. Sales actually rose after Amin did the rounds.
Amin later went to Britain for an MBA and came back in 2002. Seven years on, Amin has expanded his father's business to 120 products and set up new plants. Today, the Kanwal Group exports spices and food mixes to 20 countries and reported a turnover of Rs 200 crore in 2009-10.
Apart from the home ground advantage, the near-absence of competition helps. But Amin often regrets his decision to return to Kashmir. "Returns on the investments I've made would have been higher outside Kashmir," he says. This summer's four-month shutdown has been especially bad: Amin had to bear the `1.2 crore cost of the salaries for 800 employees, and `50 lakh as interest on idling working capital. The bowler-turned-entrepreneur had been ready for a month's shutdown.
Instead of the 70 per cent growth that Amin was driving at, sales fell by 40 per cent. Amin does not want to block any more funds in the Valley and has given up a plan to set up pickling units. He is now focusing on his plants in Bangalore and Delhi, even though the market there is fiercely competitive.
Amin had originally planned to make Kashmir his processing base for establishing a global presence. "I wanted to get some years to consolidate before taking the big leap," he says. But a lot of his plans have gone awry, and for reasons specific to Kashmir. Take Triesh, the group's bottled water brand. In 2005-06, Amin set up a plant to bottle glacial water from the Lidder Valley as a premium product, on the lines of Evian. But Amin says Triesh cannot be labelled as glacial water because environmental rules prevent him from locating the plant next to the glacier. Triesh now sells as mineral water. Says Farooq: "Evian remains unchallenged."
During the summer shutdown, he explored Dubai and the United States as alternative centres for his business. Amin will watch the Kashmir situation closely before taking a final call. Transit trading offices are already up in a couple of locations in both the places, though. Says Amin: "Even the quality of life is better there."
Waseem Trumboo
Cement manufacture is a lucrative proposition in Kashmir, because it has plenty of limestone, the basic ingredient for Portland cement. This gives local manufacturers a pricing edge over national players who have to transport the stuff from plants elsewhere.
But putting up projects is tough because the bureaucracy's ways of thinking are set in concrete, as Waseem Trumboo found out when he took over the family business in 2001. This summer, he commissioned a new plant at Khrew, just outside Srinagar. It took the state machinery two years to complete the paperwork before Trumboo could start work on the project.
"The state of mind of the bureaucracy remains the same as in the 1970s," says Trumboo. "The system of clearing projects is outdated and completely out of line with the practice in neighbouring states such as Himachal Pradesh."
Trumboo Cement Industries was already a major player in the Valley's cement business when Trumboo took the helm. The Trumboos are Kashmir's biggest business family and Waseem's cousins own the Valley's largest group.
"Returns on investments are healthy," says Waseem, who joined the business after picking up an MBA from the United Kingdom. He plans to invest nearly Rs 500 crore. When the young Omar Abdullah became chief minister, industry had expected things to change. On the advice of Trumboo, who also heads the Kashmir chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Abdullah began monitoring the progress of projects valued at over Rs 20 crore. The chief minister also sanctioned some infrastructure projects to help the company. Today, Abdullah is too preoccupied with the deteriorating political situation to spare time for building governmentindustry relations or meeting entrepreneurs.
The recent shutdown of the state could not have come at a worse time: it began just when the new plant went on stream. Trumboo Cement lost market share to national players. With production resuming in late October, Trumboo expects group turnover to grow from Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore by March 2011.
The company needs steady supplies of coal and power, but both are in short supply. It will not make sense for Trumboo Cement to set up its own power plant. For coal, the industry is dependent on Coal India Ltd, or CIL, since Kashmir is a landlocked state and it is not viable to import the fuel. Trumboo has to pay way more than counterparts in Himachal Pradesh, because CIL does not dedicate any supplies to it, and Trumboo has to buy in the black market. Also, since there is no rail link, coal has to be transported by road, which is costlier. Waseem has been urging the Union coal ministry to increase the allocations from CIL.
At a broader level, Trumboo is working with consultants from Delhi to restructure the company and strengthen good governance practices. He also hopes to get Trumboo listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange some day as the first private sector company to do so from Kashmir. The public offer, says Trumboo, will be "more for branding rather than for funds
Beyond the denominators common to Indian business, such as red tape, bad infrastructure or ambiguous policies, Kashmir's entrepreneurs have their unique problems. For one, customers from other states who buy goods and services made in the Valley often refuse to transfer payments directly to accounts in the state. They are wary of getting linked unwittingly to a terror group.
Then, on an average, traders have to pull down shutters fi ve days a week either at the diktat of some political group or because of a curfew. No school, shop or enterprise dares remain open. The men in uniform or young lads pelting stones wield enormous nuisance power.
All this leads to undependable supply and delivery chains and gives businesses in the state a reputation for unreliability that prevents them from expanding outside the state. Few consultants, investment bankers, private equity investors or head-hunters service companies in the Valley. Recruiting is tough: Bright graduates either migrate to other states or opt for the security of a government job even if it means lower pay. Work culture and professionalism have not had a chance to develop. "We are at least 30 years behind the Indian corporate sector," says Umar Trumboo, Director of the hospital-to-cement Khyber Group.
High-risk, high-returns are two sides of the coin. Successful ventures can be very profi table. The market within the state does not see much competition, so business can be lucrative. Part of the reason is also that capital, whether loans or equity, is easy to come by in the Valley. Real estate prices are up 30-35 times since the 1980s. But rich Kashmiris prefer to invest these gains mostly in ventures outside the Valley, for security.
Those who choose to do business in Kashmir are extraordinary because they too could have made the choice to leave the Valley but have not so far. They are battling ground realities and make business seem as usual.
BT presents five of them.
Nisar A. Baba
Like many businessmen in the Valley, Nisar A. Baba is a third-generation trader. Baba's family had been trading in transformers and electrical equipment for two generations when he decided to set up a factory in 2002 to manufacture transformers for sub-stations.
His business plan was perfect: there were few transformer manufacturers in the state, capital and land were cheap and it was not too hard to get the small numbers of skilled labourers. Also, governments are liberal with subsidies and tax breaks.
| Entrepreneur: Nisar A. Baba Provenance:Third-generation trader in electrical equipment; began repairing transformers in the 1990s, now makes them Company: Alba Power Performance: Turnover was Rs 9 crore in 2009-10; profit was 10 per cent of this. Has 38 employees 'The indifference of the bureaucracy in Kashmir to business very often makes me want to move out of here' |
The bureaucracy is indifferent at best. "The babus in the Valley do not recognise the importance of business," says Baba. As for government incentives, Baba says they have riders that are fine for other states but have no meaning in Kashmir, and figuring and complying with them is frustrating. "Sometimes I wish there were no incentives," Baba rues. Even the exemption from value-added tax or VAT? Yes. Baba points out that, to be eligible for the exemption, 90 per cent of a unit's staff have to be locals and it is impossible to hold on to Kashmiri engineers. Businesses fail so frequently that any engineer or doctor is ready to quit the private sector for a government job even if it means a huge pay cut. Businesses have to bring in people from outside the state on short contracts at higher rates.
Then, Alba Power's working capital could be cheaper but for the rule that the subsidy on the interest will be given only in a year of growing production. Baba reckons that Alba lost `9 lakh as the subsidy it would have received had it not been forced this summer to stop production. Jammu & Kashmir has a unique tax on contracts that costs Alba Power its business and limits its market.
Contractors buying transformers have to pay a contract tax and the VAT. This contract tax may be credited against the VAT only if the equipment has been bought from outside the state. "I have to be content selling my produce only to government departments and traders," says Baba. He often wonders if he would be better off moving out of the Valley. "The only reason I haven't moved out is that I am not giving in," he says.
Fayaz Bhat
Fayaz Bhat
As the unit itself was taking time to be built, he set up shop in a Srinagar market, in December 2004. Musky Software Solutions was ready to do business - but there was a problem. Clients equated Kashmir with tourism, not information technology. "IT was for Bangalore, they felt," recalls Bhat, the Chief Operating Officer. Stiff competition from Bangalore and the emerging small towns did not help. Musky tried to get work from government departments but gave up. "The officials could not visualise the value of our deliverables," says Bhat. Orders began to trickle in only after a network of friends and then satisfied clients pitched in with referrals.
| Entrepreneur: Fayaz Bhat Provenance: Graduate of National Institute of Technology. Worked at National Informatics Centre and a bank, then for Infosys Company: Musky Software Solutions Performance: Turnover Rs 1.45 crore in 2008-09. Profit margin 39 per cent. Employs 32 software developers. 'Kashmir is a war zone so opportunities are few and mistrust among businessmen is high' |
The frequent hartals and curfews are Bhat's constant nightmare. This summer, when businesses had to shut down for up to five days a week, Musky did not give in. It put up its programmers in makeshift dormitories at the unit for five days every week as they worked. On weekends, when curfew was relaxed, they went home.
The women engineers were not so lucky. Kashmir was not ready to see women staying overnight at the workplace and all of them quit this summer. Bhat often picks up his employees personally during times of curfew. On one such occasion, he told a couple of programmers to wait at a children's hospital, which he was scheduled to visit during curfew with the permission of the administration. However, there are things he cannot control, like the time when a broadband service provider refused to send its staff out during curfew to repair a snag. On such occasions, Musky begs its clients for time and even uses wireless data cards for connectivity.
Not many entrepreneurs risk investing in the Valley, and hardly any of the companies hire from campuses in Kashmir. Here lies Musky's advantage. It is able to hold its billing rates low and yet get a profit margin of up to 40 per cent as its salary costs are a fraction of the industry average outside Kashmir. When it started, Musky could recruit potential programmers for just Rs 1,000 a month.
Musky now has plans to open shop in Bangalore, and scale up to 300 employees by 2015. It already has a 30-member back-up team in Jammu. It is funding the expansion with its profits.
Shafat Ahmad Shah
Shafat A. Shah
Shafat Ahmad Shah's Zum Zum Dairy in Pulwama's industrial growth centre at Lassipora, 50 km from Srinagar, seems to have everything going for it, and Shah's office itself has a view to die for: the snow-covered peaks of the Pir Panjal range. But not everything is great. Shah has his panic moments: such as when police officers "hijacked" one of his milk delivery trucks. (They later returned the truck, minus 500 litres duly paid for.)
| Entrepreneur: Shafat Ahmad Shah Provenance: From a family of textile traders. Gave up studies after high school. Company: Zum Zum Dairy Performance: Reported a turnover of Rs 10 crore, claims a market share of 30 per cent, has 45-plus employees and 30 drivers 'Sometimes when I get very stressed I just go over to the golf course and hit the ball very hard' |
At full capacity, Zum Zum can handle 25,000 litres of milk a day. For now, it processes 17,000 litres a day, which it procures from chilling stations in Punjab and about a thousand farmers in neighbouring villages. It cornered a big chunk of the market when this summer's troubles hit operations at his rival. Shah tells his people that unless the plant operates, Zum Zum will not be able to pay them their wages. So Zum Zum's supply and procurement trucks run even during curfews and hartals. The price Zum Zum pays to farmers depends on the fat content of milk. Zum Zum's average rate, Rs 15 a kg, is nearly double that paid by milkmen to farmers. The controlled price of processed milk is 40 per cent higher, but the market for it is expanding fast. Balancing erratic milk supplies with steadily rising demand is not easy but Zum Zum has introduced packaged curd and is lining up to sell skimmed milk.
Help has also come from the Industries and Commerce Department. Zum Zum's success has attracted proposals for more dairies. Officials of the Lassipora growth centre are trying to dissuade the herd mentality. "The market and procurement situation cannot take another dairy," says the officer in charge. Stone pelters do not spare the industrial estate. But when they come to attack the Zum Zum plant, Shah talks them out of their rage. "I tell them they would earn savab or good deeds by allowing an essential service to carry on," says Shah.
Farooq Amin
Farooq Amin
Amin later went to Britain for an MBA and came back in 2002. Seven years on, Amin has expanded his father's business to 120 products and set up new plants. Today, the Kanwal Group exports spices and food mixes to 20 countries and reported a turnover of Rs 200 crore in 2009-10.
Apart from the home ground advantage, the near-absence of competition helps. But Amin often regrets his decision to return to Kashmir. "Returns on the investments I've made would have been higher outside Kashmir," he says. This summer's four-month shutdown has been especially bad: Amin had to bear the `1.2 crore cost of the salaries for 800 employees, and `50 lakh as interest on idling working capital. The bowler-turned-entrepreneur had been ready for a month's shutdown.
| Entrepreneur: Farooq Amin Provenance: At 16, serviced retail shops for his father's spice business during vacations. MBA from a British university. Company: Kanwal Foods & Spices Performance: Gross profit was Rs 5 crore in the latest year, has 700 employees 'My decision to return to Kashmir may not have been so smart after all...I am exploring the option of shifting to the US, UK or Dubai' |
Amin had originally planned to make Kashmir his processing base for establishing a global presence. "I wanted to get some years to consolidate before taking the big leap," he says. But a lot of his plans have gone awry, and for reasons specific to Kashmir. Take Triesh, the group's bottled water brand. In 2005-06, Amin set up a plant to bottle glacial water from the Lidder Valley as a premium product, on the lines of Evian. But Amin says Triesh cannot be labelled as glacial water because environmental rules prevent him from locating the plant next to the glacier. Triesh now sells as mineral water. Says Farooq: "Evian remains unchallenged."
During the summer shutdown, he explored Dubai and the United States as alternative centres for his business. Amin will watch the Kashmir situation closely before taking a final call. Transit trading offices are already up in a couple of locations in both the places, though. Says Amin: "Even the quality of life is better there."
Waseem Trumboo
Waseem Trumboo
But putting up projects is tough because the bureaucracy's ways of thinking are set in concrete, as Waseem Trumboo found out when he took over the family business in 2001. This summer, he commissioned a new plant at Khrew, just outside Srinagar. It took the state machinery two years to complete the paperwork before Trumboo could start work on the project.
"The state of mind of the bureaucracy remains the same as in the 1970s," says Trumboo. "The system of clearing projects is outdated and completely out of line with the practice in neighbouring states such as Himachal Pradesh."
| Entrepreneur: Waseem Trumboo Provenance: This MBA is from Kashmir's most high-profile business family, with cousins running the Khyber Group Company: Trumboo Cement Performance: Reported a turnover of Rs 150 crore, has 1,500 employees 'The system of clearing projects in J&K is completely out of line with the practice in neighbouring states such as Himachal Pradesh' |
"Returns on investments are healthy," says Waseem, who joined the business after picking up an MBA from the United Kingdom. He plans to invest nearly Rs 500 crore. When the young Omar Abdullah became chief minister, industry had expected things to change. On the advice of Trumboo, who also heads the Kashmir chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Abdullah began monitoring the progress of projects valued at over Rs 20 crore. The chief minister also sanctioned some infrastructure projects to help the company. Today, Abdullah is too preoccupied with the deteriorating political situation to spare time for building governmentindustry relations or meeting entrepreneurs.
The recent shutdown of the state could not have come at a worse time: it began just when the new plant went on stream. Trumboo Cement lost market share to national players. With production resuming in late October, Trumboo expects group turnover to grow from Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore by March 2011.
The company needs steady supplies of coal and power, but both are in short supply. It will not make sense for Trumboo Cement to set up its own power plant. For coal, the industry is dependent on Coal India Ltd, or CIL, since Kashmir is a landlocked state and it is not viable to import the fuel. Trumboo has to pay way more than counterparts in Himachal Pradesh, because CIL does not dedicate any supplies to it, and Trumboo has to buy in the black market. Also, since there is no rail link, coal has to be transported by road, which is costlier. Waseem has been urging the Union coal ministry to increase the allocations from CIL.
At a broader level, Trumboo is working with consultants from Delhi to restructure the company and strengthen good governance practices. He also hopes to get Trumboo listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange some day as the first private sector company to do so from Kashmir. The public offer, says Trumboo, will be "more for branding rather than for funds
