And what better way to invest than entrust your hard-earned money to the real professionals – the mutual fund managers. So I’ve been making the rounds of mutual fund offices in the last few days. It turned out to be much harder than I thought.

The trouble started when I told the first of the fund managers that I wanted to put my money in his fund. “That’s great,” he said, shaking my hand enthusiastically, “We have one of the widest varieties of funds for discerning investors like you. Would you like a classical equity fund, or a more sectoral approach? Or would your tastes lie more in themes–such as our fund that identifies tomorrow’s champions? Or global winners? Perhaps a plain vanilla liquid fund would be more in your line?”

By this time, my head was swimming. “Er.....what would you advise?” I finally asked. “Well”, said the hotshot fund manager, “much depends on the call you make on global growth, US real interest rates, the sustainability of EPS growth, and your personal asset allocation decisions.” He must have noticed the expression on my face. “Ok, let’s try and see which of our schemes fits your profile. How many crores will you be investing?,” said the fund manager. That struck me dumb, and all I could do was stutter that I was planning on investing Rs 20,000. “To start with, you know,” I said, trying desperately to pretend that I planned to add the other Rs 99,80,000 soon. At that, the manager suddenly remembered that he had an important meeting to attend, and pointedly showed me the door.

That’s when I decided to go to fund manager No 2. “A lot of fund managers,” he said, “ will try and fool you by asking you to invest in their so-called IPOs at Rs 10. I wouldn’t want to do that. Instead, I’m focused on making your money work harder for you.” “That’s fantastic,” I enthused, “What has been your fund’s track record?” “Well, much depends on the investment horizon over which you compare our schemes, and then again one must choose the appropriate benchmarks,” said the money manager. “Some of our schemes are at the top of their respective classes, others are middling, while still others may lag at the moment, but then, as you know, past record is no guide to future performance. And you must remember that in the meantime we have a brand new corporate identity, as seen from our brand new logo.”

Dissatisfied, I went in search of a more sympathetic fund manager. Mutual fund No 3 offered me much hope, saying that I had, at last, come to the right place. “Twenty thousand rupees? No problem, every bit helps,” said the sympathetic fund manager. “And if you have a problem choosing a fund, no problem there either”, went on this angel of mercy. “I think you should put your money in our Snazzy fund, which identifies companies with a five-year return on equity at least twice the annualised yield on the 10-year government security, provided, of course, they have a minimum market cap.” “In case you have any doubts, this should clarify it,” he said helpfully, handing me a 75-page offer document for the scheme. I muttered something about studying the document and getting back to him before fleeing.

Fund manager No 4 welcomed me with open arms, immediately offering me a no-load entry into his IPO at par. I beat a hasty retreat.

Fund manager No 5 professed to be concerned about my long-term wealth creation, and proceeded to talk about US consumption and Chinese investment. Manager No 6 spoke at length about forward PE bands and his investment philosophy,

his claim to fame being that he reshuffled his portfolio according to relative valuations and what he termed the “flexibility to dynamically alter asset allocation”.

Manager No 7 talked about yield-to-maturity and something he called active duration management, while No 8 told me to check the portfolio turnover ratio and the ratio of recurring expenses to net assets before investing.

And of course, all of them asked me whether I preferred the growth option or the dividend option or the dividend re-investment plan and whether the payout would be half-yearly or yearly or whether I preferred a cyclical series option or perhaps an automatic income payout option.

The ninth guy I visited, however, made no such inquiries, made no comment about my Rs 20,000, told me exactly how much my money would become after three years, and took my money and gave me a receipt on the spot. He was, of course, the official looking after fixed deposits in my friendly neighbourhood nationalised bank.