Bollywood Celebrities Prefer to Invest in Tax Free Bonds

Legends of Bollywood have been fuelled by the overwhelming star power of celebrities such as; Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai, Ranbir Kapoor and Amir Khan. Few of us know that Indian bond market is fully or partly fuelled by a generous smattering of investment by these superstars. It is reported that Akshay Kumar with age 48 years have earnings of Rs 128 crore in the year 2015 and due to that he is one of the big and most regular  investor in fixed income instruments as recently he has invested huge amount in IRFCs (Indian Railway Finance Corporation) tax-free bonds. When IRFC issued its bonds with Rs 4,532-crore and it was offerings 25 percent reservation for high net worth individuals and this category was used twice on Day One of the opening of IRFCs bond issue. As Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar with earnings of Rs 104 crore and Kareena Kapoor Khan with earnings of Rs 53 crore have also also put their money into IRFC bonds, as per the sources.

According to Hiten Shah, Director at SK Capital Advisors, “Now Bollywood celebrities have realized that fixed return instruments are more secure and attractive as they offer them tax-free way to invest more money for long term such as; for 15 to 20 years, whereas; if they will go for fixed deposits, so it will be taxable and are for shorter tenure”. The more he added that most of the celebrities believe that on the time of liquidity requirement, they can use these instruments by selling them into the market and it will help them to generate additional profit through capital appreciation over and above the interest rate if the interest rate falls. These days even young celebrities such as; Ranbir Kapoor (Age 33) have the earnings of Rs 85 crore and currently he is investing in the bonds, former Miss World has invested in tax-free instruments such as;  in the recent issue of NHAI (National Highway Authroity of India).

Apart from that on the other side, for most of the celebrities real estate is the most preferred investment as some of them have bought living pads in Dubai, New York and London. Now they prefer to invest in the stocks, bonds, private equity funds and in mutual funds, as per the reports. However; some of the celebrities such as; Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have invested in the stocks of listed and unlisted companies. These cine stars prefer to make their investments after the consideration of CA and other professional and they also invest through wealth managers and relationship managers of big banks and financial firms.

In the latest offering of IRFC, now even single investment of more than Rs. 10 lakhs will categorized as non-retail. And in this category¸ the investments of 10 year tenure will provide the interest rate of 7.07 percent per annum, whereas; for 15 years and 20 years tenure the interest rates are; 7.28 percent and 7.25 percent respectively. Whereas; FDs for the duration of 5 years in SBI provides 7 percent interest rate, after paying 30 percent tax, which means you will get 5 percent less net income.