Women's Day special: Why India must invest more in this 'asset class'

Of 428 fund mangers handling Rs 40 trillion, only 42 are women

Women’s representation in fund management remains in single digits in percentage terms, even as their absolute count has risen sharply in 2023. According to the latest report from Morningstar, as on January 31, 2023, the total mutual fund (MF) industry’s assets came to approximately Rs 39.62 trillion. 

This total was managed by 428 fund managers across fund houses, of whom, only 42 were women, or 9.8 per cent of the total count of MF managers. In terms of assets under management (AUM), the share of women stood at 11 per cent, or Rs 4.4 trillion, at the end of January, reveals a report shared by Morningstar.

While the overall count of women fund managers is growing, their share in AUM is declining steadily, observes the report. “Last year, women managed 11.98 per cent of the total MF assets,” it says. 

The year 2022 marked a shift in trend when it came to the quantum of assets being managed. The total assets being managed by women as of January 2023 is lower than in January 2022. “This dip may be attributed to two prominent names that exited the MF management industry last year — Swati Kulkarni (UTI MF) and Lakshmi Iyer (Kotak MF). Both managed a fair amount of corpus among themselves,” adds the report.