DHFL Pramerica Asset on expansion spree, to give digital push

DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers, a private sector fund house, is planning to nearly double the number of branches to 40 from existing 23 in the next couple of years, a top company official said.
Moreover, the company is also looking at increasing the share of retail participation in the equity AUM (assets under management) to Rs 5,000 crore within 2-3 years.
The company has already more than doubled the number of its products, branches and distributors since it acquired Deutsche Bank's mutual fund business in India nearly a year ago. The MF house has opened 10 branches in the current fiscal, taking the total to 23 pan-India.

In fact, the acquisition catapulted DHFL Pramerica's corpus of Rs 2,000 crore in March to around Rs 25,000 crore as on September-end.
"As part of our strategy to achieve growth, we are planning to double the number of branches we have now (23) to 40 within the next couple of years.
"The number of staff, which currently stands at 130, will also go up in the required proportion during the period," DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers CEO Suresh Soni told PTI here.

"The company plans to open more branches and focus on the digital space to aggressively build business and continue on the path of engaging with retail investors and distributors," he said. "We see a much larger proportion of our business coming from digital in the near future."

The MF player is a joint venture between housing finance major DHFL Group and Prudential Financial of USA.
Of the total AUM of close to Rs 25,000 crore, Rs 23,000 crore is in fixed income and the balance in equity, all from retail investors.
The company has 22 open-ended schemes in its bouquet - six in equity and the rest in fixed income. It is looking at increasing the share of retail participation in the equity AUM to Rs 5,000 crore from Rs 2,000 crore at present in 2-3 years.
"We are looking at increasing the share of retail participation in the equity AUM of the company to Rs 5,000 crore from currently existing mark of Rs 2,000 crore within the next 2-3 years," he said.

According to Soni, "We would like to see our retail footprint increasing and build a strong sustainable business on the back of it."
DHFL Pramerica's fixed income funds like Credit
Opportunities, Medium Term, Low Duration Fund and Banking & PSU Debt Funds, as on November-end, have added a total of over Rs 2,000 crore to their corpus since March.
The company has 64 per cent of assets in 5 and 4 star -rated schemes, while 61 per cent of its assets have been beating their benchmark over the past three years, according to data as on September 30 from valueresearchonline.Com, a website tracking the mutual fund industry

The company is currently having a 20-member investment team.
"We have a suite of well-performing products and do look forward to continue offering strong investment performance for our investors in the years to come," Soni said, adding "we have made sure that we have the right product offerings to suit the investor appetite.