Company Profiles
An Expanding Horizon For Lighthouse Canton
With its Singapore HQ, onshore India business, a planned office in London and business presence in Dubai, Lighthouse Canton is positioning itself to tap into a number of markets. We talk to its CEO.
Certain wealth and financial services firms stress their boutique nature, and those at the other end of the spectrum brandish the benefits of scale. Singapore-headquartered Lighthouse Canton, a firm that recently said it expects to surpass $4 billion of AuM by year-end, is definitely going after the scale side of things.
Founded in 2014 and with $3.7 billion in AuM as at 30 June, 2024,
the firm has been busy, for example announcing
a number of appointments within its wealth management business to
expand client coverage from North Asia, Southeast Asia and
Europe. Besides Singapore, it has booking centres in Dubai and
India, and plans to open a London office in the first quarter of
2025. Globally, it employs about 160 people.
The business – a global investment institution, providing
integrated financial services – combines wealth and asset
management. It has the scale of an institutionalised business
enabling it to stand out in what remains a “fragmented” EAM
sector, Shilpi Chowdhary (pictured), its chief executive, told
this news service in a call.
“There are very few people who achieve scale,” he said. The firm
aims to double its AuM in the next couple of years.
The size and scope of Lighthouse Canton means that it can support
a good human resources team, a strong culture and a happy
workplace environment, Chowdhary said.
Important footprints in India, Dubai, Singapore – and soon
in London – inevitably prompted this publication to ask why
Lighthouse Canton wanted to be in London at a time when the
current UK government appears to be turning the screws on HNW
individuals, such as resident non-doms.
Chowdhary said the company “doesn’t have a short-term view…it is
important for us as a centre.”
“We have to be where our clients are interested in. This is not
necessarily about the locals but the Asian diaspora,” he said.
London is an important place for Asian, Middle East and Indian
clients.
The firm has a wealth management business, serving corporates,
ultra-high net worth individuals, family offices, founders and
entrepreneurs, to help with their personal and business
investment needs with tailored investment advisory, portfolio
management, treasury, and business and family office
solutions. Lighthouse Canton also adds investment banking
capabilities for its clients to its repertoire – an
important element when many clients have operating firms of their
own.
The asset management arm isn’t limited to the wealth management
clients. This side of the business has internal product
capabilities in hedge funds, private equity, traditional
fundamental analysis, investing through multiple strategies in
real estate private equity, direct lending, public equities, and
global macros.
A distinctive feature of the business is its work with large
institutional investors.
Earlier in 2024, the asset management firm signed a memorandum of
understanding with NH ARP, the Singapore entity of NH Securities,
part of the NH Group in South Korea, to co-invest in the Indian
and Southeast Asian private debt markets. This investment focuses
on supporting SMEs and startups in the region. Lighthouse Canton
has also invested alongside Ivanhoe Cambridge, CDPQ’s real estate
investment arm, into South Asia's largest life sciences R&D
office labs portfolio, Neovantage Innovation Parks, located in
India's largest biotech cluster, Genome Valley,
Hyderabad.
Onshore India
Chowdhary said a differentiating quality was that Lighthouse
Canton has a large onshore India business. Over the next eight to
10 years, India is rising into being a $10 trillion economy. “To
be in the local market you have to be a local. It is an extremely
competitive market,” he said. “I started my career in India and
we do have a significant business and are known in India. The
market has massive potential and that excites us.”
In Dubai, Lighthouse Canton is tapping into the rising wealth of
the region. “We are trying to bring in a level of professionalism
that has been missing in this market,” he said. “It’s a huge
opportunity.”
“Locally, we feel that the independent wealth and asset
management industry [in Dubai, Gulf] is quite similar to
that in Asia. It is still at a nascent stage, there are many
players but more at the boutique level or simply dealing with
investments or trade execution. There are few players who have
the institutional capabilities or partner network to also advise
globally with cross-border family and business structures,
succession and estate planning, and asset management,” Chowdhary
said.
In the pocket
Chowdhary talked about Lighthouse Canton’s “private bank in your
pocket” offering
The firm has developed its own proprietary advanced technology
platform, LC Vantage. It integrates private banking capabilities.
From onboarding to execution, the platform consolidates
multi-custodian statements and provides portfolio analytics.
Separately Chowdhary also drives wealthtech development as
CEO of Keenai, an AI-driven offering that has two main products:
Keenai Wealth and Keenai Pulse. Analysis from Lighthouse Canton’s
research and investment team, along with AI-driven insights,
feeds into Keenai.
Keenai Wealth is aimed at accredited investors, giving access to
sophisticated investment products and services tailored to the
needs of high net worth individuals who qualify as Accredited
Investors under Singapore regulations. Separately Keenai Pulse
for institutions, advisors or family offices is an AI-powered
enterprise solution consolidation, advanced insights, and
reporting. It aggregates end-of-day transactions from all
custodians and advisors.
Lighthouse Canton mostly charges a flat-rate fee; some of its
revenue agreements are based on clients’ AuM.
India
This publication asked Chowdhary how he sees the Indian and
India-linked wealth story evolving.
“On the wealth management side, the India diaspora is diverse and
so are the levels of wealth. We’ve seen Mumbai surpass Beijing to
become Asia’s top billionaire city (source: CNBC). We believe
this will continue as we see the next generation of wealth take
the baton, expanding on their parents or grandparent’s legacies.
On the other hand, the startup ecosystem is growing at rapid pace
– unicorns and decacorns are coming out of India, and many of
these founders and entrepreneurs will need investments as well as
wealth management to grow their businesses and personal
wealth.
“From here, we also see these HNW Indians and UHNW Indians
becoming more global as their families spread across Singapore,
Dubai, and the UK. We also cater to onshore clients who have
global investments through our global family office services, and
they can leverage our global office network of capabilities and
partners. As such, we have different tiers of offerings depending
on the level of wealth management and investment requirements of
the onshore clients in India.
“Separate to this we also have business partners who work with us
for their capital markets and fixed income requirements,”
Chowdhary added.