Bullish on India, asset managers see billions of $ flowing in

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits US, fund managers from India and abroad expect improving sentiments and impressive returns from Indian markets to help attract billions of dollars flowing into the country's asset management industry.
Reliance Capital Asset Management CEO Sundeep Sikka said that his meetings with various institutional investors here show that they are very bullish on India and ready to pump in funds to benefit from the country's strong fundamentals and the superior returns being given by Indian markets.
"While it is difficult to put a number to the expected fund flows, more than USD 20 billion have already flown in this year and this trend is expected to gain further momentum to take the size of in-bound funds to much higher level," Sikka told PTI in an interview here.

Sikka, who was here to chair a session on Indian asset management market during the India Investment Forum organised ahead of Modi's five day visit beginning today, said that institutional investors here are waiting to invest in India and Prime Minister's visit was expected to give the much needed fillip in this regard.
The Indian asset management industry is estimated to be worth over Rs ten lakh crore and is expected to double in size in the next few years. There are nearly 45 fund houses, Indian and foreign, present in the country.
During the event, organised by Institutional Investor Forums, several fund managers said that many of India's largest asset management firms are emerging as global players, and a few are beginning to look toward Europe and North America with a keen eye on the huge pools of assets there.

They also discussed what the future of India's internal asset management industry would look like, and what role foreign asset managers will play in the development of this vital sector.

Naganath Sundaresan, CEO of DSP BlackRock Investment Managers Ltd, said that investors need to take a long-term view on India.
"I am pretty bullish that the Indian asset management industry will grow manifold in the long-term of about 10-15 years," he said.
Sunil Singhania, Chief Investment Officer (Equity) at Reliance Capital Asset Management, said that the potential remains immense for Indian fund houses and the flow of funds remain strong.

He said that India has always shown that it can come back very strongly after every bad phase and "we are seeing a robust growth trajectory going ahead".