DSP Merrill Lynch debuts estate-planning services as HNW population rises. Mumbai-based brokerage DSP Merrill Lynch has begun offering personal-trust services in New Delhi and northern India as the subcontinent's wealthy population reaches new heights.

"The booming economy has created large number of entrepreneurs in India and in Delhi, creating wealth for themselves and their families at a young age," says Pradeep Dokania, head of DSP Merrill Lynch's private-client group. "Trust is a strategic tool for estate planning and wealth preservation [that] enables clients to achieve their financial objectives. It is a part of the financial planning process."

Rope

In 2006, India's population of U.S.-dollar millionaires increased by 20.5% to about 100,000, according to the World Wealth Report, which is co-published by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. Only Singapore churned out millionaires at a faster pace.

DSP Merrill Lynch is Merrill's Indian securities business. It began as a joint venture with Mumbai-based asset manager DSP. But over the past year and a half or so has upped its 40% stake into a controlling interest.

Kevin Horrocks, chief trust officer of Merrill's international trust and wealth structuring group, says there's an increasing understanding by wealthy Indians "of the benefits of using trusts to structure wealth."

Speaking more loosely, Horrocks told India's Economic Times newspaper that DSP Merrill Lynch aims "to rope in at least 1% of 100,000 millionaires in the country."

DSP Merrill Lynch also hopes to tap its 8,000-strong retail-customer base in its search for wealth-management clients. -FWR

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