Career banker Arun Varughese is a Pathfinder

Pathfinder perspectives: Arun Varughese

Arun Varughese works in the investment banking team at Rand Merchant Bank and heads up advisory for their financial sponsor group, advising priority clients, ultra-high net worth individuals and investment holding companies across all geographies.

Arun has been a career banker for the last nine years. The diversity of investment banking is just one of the things that drew him to his current role.

“Every deal, every client, every situation is different. There’s no one day or one moment that's the same as before,” said Arun. “I work with extremely capable, driven people – A-type personalities in an entire building – and that's exciting. I work with some of the smartest and best clients on the continent.”

“It was actually at university in Cape Town that I really fell in love with finance, and I started reading about investing, capital budgeting, how to grow your money, and how to manage it,” said Arun. “I realized that business is all about relationships. And I've always been someone who prides themselves on building good relationships and being personal.”

How do you operate in a recessionary market?

“We're trying to grow business to make sure we're servicing our clients across the value chain. We help them buy and sell, we fund them, we hedge them, we help fundraise for them. We do the structuring for them. And throughout the lifecycle and within the portfolio companies, we look at how we can add value to them,” said Arun.
 
“My clients know the industry very well. They're extremely smart, experienced people. So, it's about making sure that you’re ahead of the curve in terms of market knowledge – the players, the assets, industry-specific knowledge – and your ability to connect the dots, connect the people and unlock the situation, which they can't do themselves.”

Data is a driver of change, but connections are what matter

“Technology is great and it's an aid, but it doesn't replace what we ultimately do, which is relationships. What I liked about Ansarada was the personal touch from [my Sales contact] Ari. I knew if I had any issues, I knew I could call Ari at 10pm at night or 1am in the morning.”

“The platform itself is also very user-friendly; it's very simple and intuitive. The cost of making a mistake in a Data Room can cost you the entire deal, so we are extremely paranoid about how we do things.  Ansarada’s ease of usability means less human error involved. The client won't make a mistake and we won't make a mistake,” said Arun.

“It's the ease of use, the reliability, the support. Whether it's opening a Data Room in one day, running the process, or archiving the room, it’s just been a thing of ease. That's why dealmakers – my team – love using Ansarada. I think new things like deal preparation are going to be interesting, and we're looking forward to trying that out.”