Preet Banerjee
Preet Banerjee is a Canadian financial expert and winner of the reality series The Ultimate W Expert Challenge, which aired on the W Network in Canada, during the summer of 2009.
Career
After graduating from the Bridgestone Racing Academy in 2001, Banerjee returned to the Academy to serve as their Operations Manager from 2002 until 2004. Banerjee started his career in the financial services as a Consultant shortly thereafter with Investors Group Financial Services in Whitby, Ontario. He remained there for two years before deciding that a largely proprietary product offering was not an ideal solution for all Canadian investors.
Banerjee left Investors Group Financial Services to join ScotiaMcLeod, the wealth management division of The Bank Of Nova Scotia, as a stockbroker and financial planner. It was here that he first became acquainted with passive investment management strategies (which were not offered at Investors Group). With a larger selection of investment products at his disposal, Banerjee was free to study the merits of all forms of investment management. His client portfolios soon became dominated by index funds and exchange-traded funds which Banerjee claimed was the basis of rational portfolio construction given the tremendous academic and practical support available. He also preferred offering clients their choice of how to pay fees: 1. Transactional, 2. Fee-based, or 3. Fee-only and emphasized transparency within advisor-client relationships. For these and other reasons, Banerjee was hailed as "the new breed of financial advisors" by The National Post.
Banerjee became one of less than one hundred Canadian financial advisors authorized to use Dimensional Fund Advisors' enhanced index funds. He was also an early adopter of fundamental indexation, specifically the FTSE RAFI methodology created by Robert Arnott's firm Research Affiliates.
Citing a moral and ethical objection to the predominantly sales commission based nature of financial advice delivery in Canada, Banerjee gave up his license to practice as a financial advisor in November of 2008. He joined Pro-Financial Asset Management as Senior Vice President, responsible for institutional sales, product development and general education of financial advisors as well as the public on the discussion between ACTIVE management and passive management. Pro-Financial Asset Management is a mutual fund manufacturer specializing in the FTSE RAFI fundamental index funds.
Preet currently writes a financial blog aimed at helping Canadians save their money.