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Fund
People : The New Breed
They are young, and immensely successful. And they handle your
money as if it was their own
Meet
the young breed of fund managers, who've made their mark and briskly
too, in an atmosphere where competition has cut more throats than
can be counted. Times are a-changing and gone are the days when the
salt & pepper look was mandatory for the guy investing your hard
earned money. Trust is no longer synonymous with age and careers are
made on the basis of performance alone.
It takes more than just dedication, though. Perhaps a strong disposition
to climb the ladder rather quickly, and may be taking the 'right calls'
in investments lead these fund managers to where they currently stand
- managing assets worth thousands of crore.
Their average age would belie their accomplishments: most of them
are in their early thirties, some much younger. We've attempted to
track their journey up to their current standing and it only leaves
us hoping that more of their ilk join the bandwagon.
With the bourses looking up, investment portfolios are only growing
bigger, and mutual funds seem to be grounding themselves well. With
investor expectations soaring high, the role of a fund manager has
become more critical.
Bekxy Kuriakose
Age: 25 years
Fund house: SBI MF
Assets Under Management: About Rs 700 crore
The youngest candidate in our chronicle, Kuriakose believes that it's
not always possible to be the number 1, but a consistent track record
of posting good returns in the long term is a rational objective.
"I take calculated risks, so that my schemes yield above average
returns," she acknowledges. With a post-graduate diploma in management
from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Kuriakose set
foot in the securities sector three years ago, when she joined SBI
Mutual Funds as a dealer in government securities and research analyst.
Currently, she manages three debt funds, of which the Magnum Gilt
Fund is the principal scheme. She feels though training has its own
significance, experience definitely augments one's skills. Suited
more to the fixed-income framework, she is quite settled in her present
job and hopes to handle a larger corpus in the none-too-distant future.
Manoj Kumar Swain
Age: 28 years
Fund house: Standard Chartered MF
Assets Under Management: About Rs 1700 crore
Swain manages the Grindlays Super Saver Income Fund, both the short-
and medium-term plans at Standard Chartered Mutual Fund. In the last
one year, the fund has grown more than four times. With a career spanning
about six years with various financial institutions such as Times
Guaranty, UTI Bank and ICICI Bank, Swain garnered substantial experience
in the debt sector. "The most important thing in fund management
is to sell the scheme in the right manner. Every fund has its own
objectives, and one must be courageous enough to take risks within
the predetermined parameters," he says. His trek hitherto has
been fairly smooth, and that in itself is very unusual. "Here
performance is measured on a day-to-day basis; the accountability,
therefore, is much greater. It is not possible to track minute movements
in the market and therefore there is always room for improvement."
A cricket enthusiast, he travels from Andheri to Churchgate to play
a match on those Sundays when he finds time off his newly married
life.
Badrish Kulhalli
Age: 31 years
Fund house: Alliance MF
Assets Under Management: Rs 85 crore
People always remember a slip-up more than a good deal," remarks
Kulhalli, part of the investment team managing the debt schemes at
Alliance Capital Mutual Fund. It was the attraction towards interest
rates and derivatives markets that propelled this mechanical engineer
from Pune to consider a career in finance. He says, "A market
is a collection of people and just theoretical knowledge is not enough
to take your decisions. This is where experience clarifies your perspective."
He hopes to imbibe his father's patience in dealing with people. He
does not believe in promising the moon but more importantly, communicating
the risk-reward trade-off to the investor.
The Alliance Government Securities Fund, managed by Kulhalli, won
the CNBC - BNP Paribas Mutual Fund of the Year, 2003 award for the
best open-ended gilt fund in the one-year category. He is inclined
towards managing fixed income funds with a bigger corpus in future.
Jyoti Vaswani
Age: 33 years
Fund house: JM Mutual
Assets Under Management: Rs 30 crore
Vaswani recalls her investment in Divi's Labs, which yielded a return
of about 200 per cent since its initial public offering, and calls
it as one of the best deals she's made in her career spanning over
eight years. After obtaining a chartered financial analyst degree,
she joined Prabhudas Lilladher, a Mumbai-based brokerage, as a part
of their equity research team.
Managing three schemes in the JM Mutual Fund stable, her investment
philosophy is based on the concept of a 'blend' fund, which attempts
to integrate growth and value. She believes that it is critical to
have an understanding of the market and a gut feel of movements. She
admires her chief executive officer Krishnamurthy Vijayan's "never
say die" approach and endeavours to imbibe his attitude towards
work.
Ramanathan K
Age: 30 years
Fund house: Birla Sunlife MF
Assets Under Management: About Rs 4700 crore
In the mutual fund industry, you want to buy more when the market
is down, but the investor's psyche does not always permit this. They
may get jittery and may want to redeem the investments immediately,
which does not leave us with enough liquid assets for purchase,"
explains Ramanathan, joint fund manager of fixed income funds at Birla
Sunlife Mutual Funds. He believes in taking a conservative approach
toward fund management as it is a prerequisite for this asset class.
"Capital preservation is very important in the fixed income funds,"
he says.
Having done his graduation from the S P Jain Institute of Management
& Research, Ramanathan believes good analytical skills and the
ability to think online are vital for a fund manager. "There
are a lot of areas in securities, like hedge funds and high-yield
funds, which are as yet unexplored and the future for this market
is very good. I hope to handle some of these in the coming years."
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