BS People: Rajan Mehta

A seasoned manager

Rajan Mehta (46), executive director, Benchmark AMC, must be a happy man to see the fund house bagging a good deal from Goldman Sachs. Valued at around 4 per cent of the assets under management, this is much better than the recent deals in the Indian asset management space — all concluded in the range of 1.25 to 2.5 per cent.

Mehta shies away from taking credit for the growth of Benchmark AMC since it was launched a decade back in 2001. For him, it is the team work that helped Benchmark gain the popularity and establish itself as an unparalleled brand in the ETF category. His peers talk high of him. Mehta remained as a firm pillar and an active growth engine behind Benchmark's growth, they say.

An engineer and master of management studies from the University of Bombay, Mehta joined Benchmark within three months of its launch in August 2001. Since then, he has been a key driving force behind the growth of the fund house. Benchmark was the first asset management company in India with a primary focus on indexing and using quantitative techniques in creating innovative products.

He admits that he was convinced with the fact that ETF, as an instrument for investment, was going to be the future in India. He says ETF market is set to grow, as the product has remarkable characteristics and is simple with lower cost attached. Educating people and conducting seminars was given due importance, as ETF was a new concept in the country.

Mehta is a post-graduate in Investment Management from the London Business School and has over 16 years of experience in international and domestic financial markets. Before joining Benchmark, he worked as the as vice-president at Merrill Lynch, London, where he managed over $150-million client assets as a wealth manager. The asset class included equity, debt, derivatives, currencies, structured products and mutual funds. Before that, he was vice-president at DSP Merrill Lynch in Mumbai, in charge of indirect marketing through sub-broker network and direct marketing to high networth individuals and the middle market institutional segment. In this role, Mehta handled primary and secondary sales for equity and debt.