25 years of private sector MF: Many foreign players bite the dust in India

Some fund houses were neither able to gather critical mass of assets, nor build a distribution network

At a time when the private sector mutual fund industry is celebrating its 25 years, it is surprising that there are few foreign players who have made the cut. The first player in the private sector – Kothari Pioneer – was sold to Franklin Templeton within the first few years. While Pioneer has re-entered the Indian market by buying a stake in Bank of Baroda’s mutual fund arm, there are other illustrious names such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, JP Morgan, ING, etc, who came into India lured by its growth prospects, found the going tough and pulled the plug