Apac Investment Awards

A nsiderac

APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Investment

awards 2016 IIFL Private Wealth Management Best Wealth Management Firm 2016 - India

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Welcome to the 2016 APAC Insider Investment Awards The APAC Insider Investment Awards 2016 are all about recognising the businesses, departments and individuals setting the standard in one of the business world’s most diverse and fascinating areas.

These awards pay tribute to only the most groundbreaking, forward thinking and client-friendly businesses.

We’re not concerned with a firm’s size or reputation, but rather those firms that have done truly amazing things to change the financial landscape and the way we look at investing.

It is for this reason that you’ll find the biggest and most influential names on the Asia Pacific business landscape standing side by side with some of the most innovative small businesses operating anywhere in the world today.

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4. Best Wealth Management Firm 2016 - India - IIFL Private Wealth Management 6. Best Multi-Strategy Fund - KS Asia Absolute Return Fund (“KSAARF”) & Best Credit Fund - KS Credit Fund & Best Pan-Asia Focused Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund: KS Asia Absolute Return Fund - Gen 2 Partners Limited 8. Best Specialist Alternative Investment Manager - Hong Kong - Arowana Asset Management Ltd 10. Best Specialist Alternative Investment Firm- Hong Kong - Bravia Capital 12. Best Frontier Markets Private Equity Firm & Best Asia Impact Investment Fund:Osiris Asia Impact Fund - The Osiris Group 14. Best India Investment 2016: BLUE DART - Blue Dart Express Ltd 16. Best Fund House - India 2016 - ICICI Prudential AMC

APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Wealth Management Firm 2016 - India

IIFL Private Wealth Management

Established in 2008 IIFL Private Wealth Management offer exceptional services which are valued by driven, astute clients from all walks of life.

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IIFL Private Wealth was formed when a group of senior professionals with significant Private Banking experience joined hands with IIFL Holdings Ltd (formerly India Infoline Ltd) and started operations in April 2008. A more ominous kick-off couldn’t have been fathomed, in the financial services industry.

Within just seven years, the firm has a magnificent turnaround story to showcase. IIFL Private Wealth is the investment and financial advisor to more than 8,600 influential HNI and Ultra HNI families in India and abroad, aggregating more than USD12.00bn of assets under management, advice and distribution.

During this entrepreneurial journey, IIFL Private Wealth has acquired two firms, added over 400 employees, and spread to 22 offices globally, to become India’s largest private wealth management com¬pany. It also remains ambitious and relentlessly focussed on growth.

An array of best practice measures has helped IIFL Private Wealth create a 360 degree, all-encompassing advisory service and ensure that its interactions with clients are relationship-driven and honed by trust.

This, in turn, has earned it strong client referrals that add to its fantastic growth story, year on year.

Broadly, the cornerstones of the firm’s premise are: Wealth Management: This involves preparation of an invest¬ment mandate, and establishing objectives and strategies in accordance with the client risk appetite, rate of return, income/liquidity requirements, asset allocation and time horizon. Once the port¬folio has been made, this is followed by seamless execution, review and periodic monitoring of the clients’ investments to meet or exceed their objectives.

Wealth Administration: This includes a vast array of intricate financial planning and management tools, largely aided by technology. There are two key aspects of wealth administration. Investment Reporting, involves a consoli¬dated performance reporting on all client assets and investments, including those not invested with IIFL Private Wealth. The Asset Register encapsulates the aggregating of all client investments including non-financial assets such as real estate, promoter holdings, personal assets etc .

Wealth Structuring: This consists of organizing and struc¬turing business and personal assets, protection strategy, long term business re-structuring, tax efficiency, bespoke solutions for domestic and international clients and family governance issues. Asset protection and ring fencing of hold¬ings within the framework of global legal and tax framework forms a significant proportion of wealth structuring.

Client-centricity is one of IIFL Private Wealth’s core value systems. And the focus of the firm has been on excellent client servicing enhanced by the power of technologi¬cal initiatives. This has been widely recognised and appreciated translating into over 40 awards globally.

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Company: IIFL Private Wealth Management Telephone: +91 22 3958 5600 Website: www.iiflw.com

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Multi-Strategy Fund - KS Asia Absolute Return Fund (“KSAARF”) & Best Credit Fund - KS Credit Fund & Best Pan-Asia Focused Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund: KS Asia Absolute Return Fund

Gen2 Partners Limited Gen2 Partners is a Hong Kong based investment firm offering a range of innovative investment products to investors across the APAC region.

We spoke to Kyle Shin about the firm’s Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund and the exciting plans he has for it in the future.

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Prior to founding Gen2 Partners Limited, I was the head of Kingdon Capital’s Korea office, which is highly reputable global hedge fund manager, gaining unique experience which I drew on when I decided to move into the Hong Kong hedge fund market myself.

In 2008 I set up Gen2 Partners in Hong Kong, drawing on my experience investing in Asia to support both onshore and offshore investors.

The KSAARF Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund was launched in 2010, which quickly attracted a variety of investors including global banks, asset managers and family offices. These investors were attracted by the fact that volatility within the fund is only 5.6%, with a Sharpe Ratio of 2.0, which is outstanding compared to other similar products on the Asian market.

Therefore clients were able to be assured of double digit returns with less than half of the market volatility that other funds are exposed to, making the fund an attractive investment opportunity for anyone looking to move into the Asian market.

Additionally the fund is very flexible, moving between equity and fixed income products.

With regards to fixed income investments we prefer not to take a credit risk and mostly invest in high grade fixed income with a short duration. Currently much of the exposure with regards to our fixed income investment is spread across China, Korea and Japan.

Recently we have been adding a lot of Standby Letters of Credit to our portfolio, which are issued as a payment of last resort

by Government owned entities, and are guaranteed by the top 4 commercial banks.

This spreads the risk and makes these papers more secure than those issued directly from global banks. We have been added these for the past 9 months to our portfolio, and keen to continue adding them because of the low risk and decent returns they offer. Currently they are outperforming the entire investment market despite the crashes which have been occurring in the Asian markets recently.

Within the Asian investment market it is critical to keep ahead of emerging trends and developments, and therefore Gen2 Partners regularly communicates with market participants in order to ensure that our information is up to date. We also keep a good network of brokers, who always hold a lot of information on the industry, such as IPOs or how the market is performing.

Our strong collaborative approach, combined with our risk averse strategy has helped to ensure a strong performance from the fund, and we have made 5% returns over the past 12 months, and despite tough economic conditions across the Asian market.

Recently the Korean Government has changed its regulations to allow offshore investors greater access to its markets, as well as

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Company: Gen2 Partners Limited Telephone: : 852 3727 4500 Email: info@gen2ks.com Website: www.gen2ks.com

enabling firms such as mine to easily set up hedge fund businesses within the country.

Therefore moving forward Gen2 Partners is keen to set up a hedge fund management company in Korea, as well as looking for an investment opportunity in an established asset management firm in the country, looking to become the second largest shareholder in this business.

internally, particularly invested in its pension funds, some of which are the third largest in the world, which is still growing rapidly. Owing to their aging population the country has to invest offshore, and Gen2 Partners is perfectly placed to support them in this. By creating an office in Korea we will increase our investor base and grow our assets under management significantly.

This is an exciting opportunity for our firm as the Korean investment market is currently very strong, and the country has a lot of money

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Multi-Strategy Fund of Funds : Arowana Asia Fund & Best for Operation Due Diligence

Arowana Asset Management Ltd Arowana Asset Management is an independent Asset Management and Advisory Firm focusing primarily on hedge funds but also long only funds. Pierre Hoebrechts talks us through the firm and its innovative investment approach.

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The team here at Arowana Asset Management has over 50 years of experience in global markets and has been analyzing hedge funds since 1998, combined with an extensive network of relationships worldwide.

The firm’s flagship fund is the Arowana Asian Fund, which is a multi-strategy fund of funds investing in Asia. We can also build tailor made funds or products/portfolios at the request of clients.

Alongside this we also provide an extensive list of services from fund selection to markets and risk research as well as analytics, and have developed a unique in-house standardised report on a long list of Asian Funds based on our extensive experience. Alternatively we can perform ‘bespoke’ reviews, focussing on specific areas requested by a particular client.

We are delighted to be receiving this award, as it is very gratifying to receive external confirmation that we have achieved top notch performance for our investors. This provides us with strong evidence that we are on the right path to develop an asset management firm where excellence is the goal.

There are a number of factors behind our success, including our highly professional and experienced team. We also believe the key point is our focus on understanding the several dimensions of risk which helps tremendously in generating high risk adjusted returns.

In addition we perform detailed analysis and monitoring of the market to help us understand

the alpha generated by each manager as well as performing thorough operational due diligence.

Working within such a highly competitive market it is important to stand out. As a firm we cater to a small number of clients, enabling us to provide tailor made services with a high level of care and attention to each client, ensuring we are always available to them as their partner in Asia.

This is a vital attribute as we believe that the Asian investment market, China in particular, is under covered and under researched by most investors globally. As a result, the allocation to the region is extremely small, despite riskadjusted performance and alpha generation that are much higher than what most asset managers in the US and Europe have been able to offer despite evolving in a much more favourable investment environment.

This differentiation is both a challenge as investors fail to recognise how much added the value the region could have to their portfolio and an opportunity as the strong performance of the Arowana Asian Fund illustrates perfectly our belief about the enormous potential the region has.

Recently there has been an increasing demand for Asian investments as valuations in the US and Europe are looking rich and the economic growth potential increasingly moves east. As investors discover the abilities of Asian hedge funds and funds of funds to provide very high risk adjusted returns, we expect asset allocation shift to the region to increase.

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Company: Arowana Asset Management Ltd. Name: Pierre Hoebrechts Telephone: E-mail: pierre@arowanaam.com Address: 99 Queens Road, 66F, Suite 01-03, Central, Hong Kong Website: www.arowanaam.com

Our location within the Asia region gives us frequent and meaningful contact with the Funds we monitor and we have built up an extensive network of relationships within the region over the past 9 years. We are able to hold over 200 meetings with Asian Fund Managers each year, which is of tremendous value to clients with no or little presence in Asia. Our CIO has also spent 10 years in NYC providing a unique perspective and experience to analyse the Asian hedge fund industry and markets.

Moving forward, we believe that continuing to differentiate ourselves through high risk adjusted performance will provide numerous opportunities to develop our business, whether it is increasing our AUM or developing new tailor made products for our clients.

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Specialist Alternative Investment Firm- Hong Kong

Bravia Capital Bravia Capital is a specialist alternative investment firm with a primary focus on transportation, logistics and leasing sectors, that have successfully led equity investments with co-investors totalling approximately US$ 5 billion. We spoke to Robin Yan, Head of Investment & Analytics at Bravia Capital, to find out more.

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Our co-investment partners consist of strategic corporates and global financial investors. We take a value-oriented and collateral-focused approach to investments, and we align our interests with our coinvestment partners to exit investments profitably.

Many of our senior management come from an operating background, and we have the ability to be very hands-on with our portfolio companies.

First and foremost, we make sure we are economically incentivised to be in alignment with our co-investment partners. The firm believes in making financial commitments to transactions, aligning our interests with them to exit investments profitably. Furthermore, we are intently focused on managing risk, and are deeply involved with the operators of our businesses.

Because we focus on linking businesses within a supply chain, we target investments that generate value and synergies for our portfolio companies.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cash results rather than paper profits and NAV style valuations. If an investment can support it, we deliver fixed income to our co-investment partners, and because we have a relatively shorter hold period, they see cash returns quickly, and typically this provides them the conviction to invest in the next deal with us.

As a company working in an industry that is constantly changing, we implement a number of measures to ensure that we remain ahead of the curve. We have developed a substantial origination network across the Asia Pacific region, and have personnel across key geographies across the globe. In doing so, we utilize

our global network and long-standing relationships to source opportunities, and our strategic relationships provide a flow of proprietary deals with attractive economics.

Given our sector focus, we end up investing in businesses that have mobile assets (whether they are aircraft, vessel, or container) spread across the world in Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. This makes us a global player, and we are now looking more closely at Pan-Asia focused opportunities. The combination of what we believe are fundamental long-term macro patterns and the current volatility in the market have created attractive entry points for investments in the region over the next 18 months.

Perhaps the most distinguishing factor of our firm is that our investment strategy calls for us to establish control positions within market leaders, build scale through rollups, and exit through non-traditional capital market opportunities. We believe this strategy puts us on a fast track to make substantial sector bets, and if we are right in our assessments we are able to create a lot of value over a very short period of time.

We have been known to be able to exit our positions within three to four years, a much shorter hold period than traditional private equity firms. This is what we would like to be known for: being able to quickly realize value for our stakeholders.

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Company: Bravia Capital Name: Robin Yan Telephone: +852 2677 2104 E-mail: ry@braviacapital.com Address: Unit 6510, The Center, 99 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong Website: www.braviacapital.com

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Frontier Markets Private Equity Firm & Best Asia Impact Investment Fund:Osiris Asia Impact Fund

The Osiris Group The Osiris Group is a boutique private equity firm scaling innovation in frontier markets.

The financing engine for profitable disruption, the Group intentionally builds systems of the future, rather than the past. A top priority for the firm is allocating capital into investments leapfrogging long-term economic development, prosperity and growth.

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In 1961, a pandemic wave of Cholera began in Sulawesi, Indonesia and violently spread across Asia, Europe and Africa.

Extreme dehydration, induced by diarrhea and vomiting, triggered rapid death, killing tens of thousands of people in South Asia alone. Bengali doctors working feverishly in Dacca, East Pakistan found an innovative way to fight back. The Bengali’s revisited a century-old concoction of coconut water, carrot juice, carob flour and old bananas spiking rapid rehydration, healing the sick and ending the outbreak. This life-saving treatment of carbs, sugar and salt was later published in British medical journal, Lancet, and eventually made its way to a doctor in the US. The physician, based at the University of Florida, was then working with the school’s football team, on how to best deal with oppressive heat and humidity his players faced during strenuous games. The doctor saw a common solution in rapid rehydration, if it worked for sick cholera patients, it would surely work for his healthy team, the Gators. Whipping up a formula of water, glucose, sodium and potassium, the genesis of the most popular sports drink in human history was created - Gatorade.

Gatorade is a rare example of reverse innovation, an idea first adopted in the developing world, and defies gravity by flowing uphill to the developed world. It runs counter to the dominant innovation pattern we think happens in places like Silicon Valley or New York. Reverse innovation pushes the

performance paradigm, offering more for less while recognizing an entirely different user context.

Around the world low-income rural villagers, measuring 3.1 billion people, represent half the world’s population and nearly $15 trillion in income.

The fact is – globally the middle class is getting larger – but it’s really happening from the very bottom up. Geopolitically, engaging the frontier market consumer is the most important secular investment trend of the 21st century, and is at the heart of our investment framework.

One of the important lessons of the past two decades has been the pivotal role of innovation in economic development. Every industry dealing with information can be efficiently modernized – and disrupted with innovation. Innovation has globalized; business models and technology developed in one country can be easily exported to another. Orthogonal processes relevant in one industry are pertinent to others. Innovation makes a significant difference commercially addressing urgent developmental challenges such as universal access to electricity, rural cardiac care or better financial inclusion. In the next three years, smart phones will replace feature phones, and a billion frontier market consumers will be connected to the Internet. The most important challenges facing society today create commercial investment opportunities transforming commerce, education, governance and infrastructure management.

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Company: The Osiris Group Fund(s): Osiris Asia Impact Fund Name: Jason Bajaj Title: Co-Founder & Managing Partner Telephone: +852 2677 2104 E-mail: impact@osirisgroupllc.com Address: 19th floor, 139 Queens Road Central, Central Hong Kong Website: www.the-osiris-group.com

With 21st century technology, rural innovation strengthens community resilience and creates two sources of alpha; sovereign and deal alpha.

Our investees commercially leapfrog lives scaling basic, recurring needs. We painstakingly source, invest and enhance dominant moats building capabilities, marketplaces or payments passing the “toothbrush test,” an affordable B2C service used daily making life better, targeting the rural masses.

Our process of creating new jobs and educational training is development. Obtaining a beta blocker solution when you have heart pain is an example of prosperity. Making sure every man, woman and child irrespective of socioeconomic status has access to a better life – that’s growth. The perceived tradeoff between returns and impact is a false dichotomy, there are tradeoffs with any strategy; but undervalued moats, when thoughtfully combined, propel pro-cyclical, virtuous sovereign growth.

For the 3.1 billion village consumers around the world today, they won’t repeat the last 200 years of industrialization; we intentionally leapfrog development to build systems of the future, rather than the past. Market creating innovation, our area of expertise, transforms expensive and inaccessible offerings into cheap and accessible ones, enabling reach to an entirely new population of customers.

By transforming previous rural non-consumers into consumers, market creating innovation turns the liabilities of developing nations - the diverse unmet need of her populace - into larger TAM assets for GMV capture. We build and capture significant IRR disrupting non-consumption, helping entrepreneurs win hearts and minds while transforming real lives.

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best India Investment 2016: BLUE DART

Blue Dart Express Ltd Blue Dart Express Ltd, South Asia’s premier express air and integrated transportation & distribution company, offers secure and reliable delivery of consignments to over 34,734 locations in India. As part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group, Blue Dart accesses the largest and most comprehensive express and logistics network worldwide.

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Financial leaders play a vital role in the creation of long-term sustainable value. The finance function is in a unique position to support or lead the creation of sustainable success for the business and influence the strategy of the organisation. Therefore recognitions like these highlight the unique and important work that finance professionals are doing behind the scenes.

The Blue Dart team drives market leadership through its motivated people force, dedicated air and ground capacity, cutting-edge technology, wide range of innovative vertical specific products and value-added services to deliver unmatched standards of service quality to its customers.

Today the CFO is in a unique position and is at the absolute center with complete control on the financial aspects of the business as well as being abreast on all the technical aspects for being future ready.

At Blue Dart, there are multiple hats that I wear - Finance, Accounting, Risk, Legal, Compliances, Governance, Operations, Information Technology, Service Quality and Corporate Strategy. In order that we stay ahead of competition, there is a clear focus on applying emerging technologies to drive the next generation of efficiencies in the business and monitoring market

opportunities to allow the organisation to take advantage of strengthening demand The Asia Pacific region continues to be the engine of global economic growth and will continue to increase its economic significance, considering that it houses three of the world’s four largest economies by purchasing power parity namely China, India and Japan.

Logistics is the backbone of the Indian economy, providing efficient, cost effective flow of goods on which other sectors depend. India’s logistics sector is perched on growth, mainly led by a promising economic environment, ramp up in airport, sea ports, roads, highway and transport infrastructure, e-tailing penetration, impending GST implementation and other initiatives like ‘Make in India’.

One of the greatest challenges the industry faces is the lack of good infrastructure which is essential for speedy and reliable services that are the key elements of an express industry and the industry concerns need to be addressed in the best interest of the sector so as to effectively partner India’s growth.

Blue Dart has invested heavily in technology infrastructure to create differentiated delivery capabilities, quality services and customized

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Company: Blue Dart Express Ltd. Name: Yogesh Dhingra Telephone: +91 22 28396444 E-mail: yogeshd@bluedart.com Address: Blue Dart Centre, Sahar Airport Road, Andheri (East), Mumbai 400 099 Website: www.bluedart.com

solutions for clients. This has enabled us to offer webbased solutions mentioned above to customers that can be integrated with their core products.

I am extremely honoured to receive this prestigious award, it has made me feel both elated and humbled at the same time. I always believe in being prepared with a well thoughtout business plan which is unique and different. Blue Dart has always focused on promoting financial excellence and reporting while keeping an eye on the critical cost factor.

As we look ahead to the future Blue Dart will continue to roll out sector-specific innovative products and services to address the ever changing and evolving demands and requirements of different industries. Going forward the company will strengthen its focus on product innovation, reach expansion, transit time improvements, small town activation and strengthening channels. The strategy is in place and we are geared to increase our market share and dominance through sector focus and new growth engines.

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APAC Insider 2016 Investment Awards

Best Fund House - India 2016

NIMESH SHAH, MD & CEO

ICICI Prudential AMC

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Company Profile ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd. is a leading asset management company (AMC) in the country focused on bridging the gap between savings & investments and creating long term wealth for investors through a range of simple and relevant investment solutions.

The AMC is a joint venture between ICICI Bank, a well-known and trusted name in financial services in India and Prudential Plc, one of UK’s largest players in the financial services sectors. Throughout these years of the joint venture, the company has forged a position of pre-eminence in the Indian Mutual Fund industry.

The AMC has witnessed substantial growth in scale; from 2 locations and 6 employees at the inception of the joint venture in 1998, to a current strength of 1100 employees with a reach across around 120 locations reaching out to an investor base of around 3 million investors. The company’s growth momentum has been exponential and it has always focused on increasing accessibility for its investors.

The AMC manages money across all client segments - retail, high net worth, institutional and overseas – and across a range of traditional and alternative asset classes. The Mutual Fund segment caters primarily to retail investors. It has continuously aimed to provide retail investors with financial solutions to aid them in achieving their life cycle objectives. It has constantly been on the forefront of innovation and has introduced products aligned to meet customer needs leading to a well-diversified portfolio of mutual fund products.

The AMC also caters to Portfolio Management Services (PMS) for investors, spread across the country, along with International Advisory Mandates for clients across international markets in asset classes like Debt, Equity and Real Estate.

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PMS allows high net worth investors to invest in a more concentrated portfolio aiming at higher returns.

Real Estate division caters to high net worth investors and domestic institutional investors.

International Advisory service offers international investors to invest in India.

The offshore advisory division advises India-only funds and segregated mandates for clients domiciled in jurisdictions spanning Europe, Japan, Middle East, Taiwan & Singapore.

Diversity within a single fund house While in the MF industry, we often see products being without clear positioning or distinction, ICICI Prudential AMC has ensured sharply focused products with every fund giving a different slice of market to the investor.

The purity of product positioning has been core to their practices with a commitment to manage funds strictly according to the mandate, irrespective of the market environment or short term underperformance, or any other factor. The firm has also looked at product innovation to help clients to achieve a better investing experience.

Driven by Investor-centricity and Investmentcentricity The mind set and culture of people in this

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Company: ICICI Prudential AMC Contact person: Adil Bakhshi, Head- PR & Communication Telephone: (+91 22) 6647 0274 E-mail: adil_bakhshi@icicipruamc.com Address: One BKC, A- Wing, 13th Floor, Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai - 400051 Website: www.icicipruamc.com

company has been consciously driven towards investor-centricity so that the right advice could be offered to investors. Also, every employee has the culture of investment engrained in them. Thus, Investor-centricity and Investment-centricity have been the two edifices upon which the company is standing strong.

The innate objective has been to keep investors’ interest at the helm by offering investors a product suite that caters to their every possible need and creating significant value for them by managing money well. Driven by an entirely investor centric approach, the organization today is a suitable mix of investment expertise, resource bandwidth and process orientation. The AMC endeavours to simplify its investor’s journey to meet their financial goals, and give a good investor experience through innovation, consistency and sustained risk adjusted performance.

Processes in place When people are the essence of this organization, fund management is not about having star fund managers but rather strong processes in place. The fund house has clearly defined internal processes on every aspect of fund management - cash calls, portfolio construction, stock selection, risk mitigation, portfolio review and monitoring.

We have built diversity within the fund house by offering variety of investment strategies- Value/Contrarian, Growth at Reasonable Price (GARP) and Growth, consciously aligning investing styles of different fund managers with the respective fund objectives.

In fact, we have a culture where fund managers are encouraged to develop their individual styles but at all times these have to be practised within the overall investment framework. The fund managers have been asked to follow the fund’s objective to the hilt and hence no style drift is allowed beyond the boundaries of the fund’s mandate.

Products are mapped to people with certain style strengths. For instance currently, the team includes five portfolio managers: • Sankaran Naren | Contrarian value oriented, constricted.

• Manish Gunwani | Focus on management and numbers.

• Mrinal Singh | Less concentration, more diverse portfolio. Has capability to pick value stocks.

There is also an endeavour not to go wrong on management when selecting companies. The other cornerstone of their philosophy is that they do not change strategy after failure. This has helped them to stand behind their conviction calls without worrying about short term performance, and focus on long term performance.

While the focus is on long term performance, the performance record, is just one of the filters, the others being risk management

and sustainability of the fund’s performance. Therefore, riskadjusted performance is truly being monitored in order to ensure that fund manager doesn’t take undue risks for achieving returns.

The fund house has achieved a rare distinction of having 100% of equity AUM beating benchmarks over the medium (3, 5 years) and long term (10 years & 15 years) basis - which bears eloquent testimony to processes that work.

People with purpose The investment team comprises 33 professionals, led by senior professionals in equity, fixed income and real estate. Building a team of young analysts, coupled with experienced fund managers who have seen a couple of economic cycles at least, was a stepping stone towards the right path. This strategy has ensured novel ideas from young analysts and the keen judgement from experienced fund managers.

Investments function is led by S Naren, CIO, having 24 years of rich experience in broking, project finance, investment banking and fund management. Naren has built a fundamentally strong investment team that follows a disciplined investment approach which would combine global and regional considerations with a local focus.

Fund managers are supported by in- house teams providing market leading research, risk management and dealing capabilities.

India - Challenges & Opportunities The perceived challenges in India, with regards to Mutual Fund industry are actually huge opportunities and could prove to be the growth drivers going ahead. Currently, domestic investors remain extremely under-invested in equities while over-invested in physical assets like real estate and gold. The only main challenge is that Indians are better savers than they are investors. In an inflationary economy as India, saving doesn’t help beat the inflation, investment does. Therefore, an ‘investment cult’ needs to be developed in the country. We strongly advise investors to reduce their investments in physical assets and move to financial assets. Fortunately, this appears to have commenced; Indian investors are slowly moving out of physical assets like gold and real estate, and investing in bank deposits or fixed income, which is a good sign and a potential growth driver for the industry going ahead.

An industry where the product is transparent and beneficial to the final customer, will multiply in size as is clearly seen in the mutual fund (MF) industry. SEBI has provided a robust regulatory landscape for the stakeholders. The interest of investors has been protected from all corners, by offering a transparent and efficient product.

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