Women are making big inroads into money management; 16 woman fund managers oversee over Rs 2.7 lakh crore of investor funds, up from close to Rs 2 lakh crore a year ago
It's that time of the year when we pay homage to Goddesses. When it comes to markets, the women brigade of asset managers is letting their work do the talking.
According to latest data collected across industry, sixteen woman fund managers cumulatively oversee investor money worth over Rs 2.7 lakh crore. Little over a year ago i.e. at the end of August-2015, this figure was close to Rs 2 lakh crore. Today, women fund managers oversee nearly one-fifth of the industry’s assets, signifying their rising importance in the pecking order.
Leading the charts are women who literally live on ‘date with debt’ i.e. fixed income assets. Until August-end, Anju Chhajer of Reliance Nippon AMC managed assets worth over Rs 61,000 crore across over 40 schemes including closed-ended ones. She happens to manage the fourth largest debt income fund and a top-10 liquid fund.
"I have grown with the fixed income market. When I started out, concepts like money market were at a nascent stage. Being a CA, I was well aware of equities but debt market was a learning experience. The markets have also evolved over the past 15-20 years. The only fixed income at that point was fixed deposit. Women fund managers will emerge stronger as awareness increases," says Chhajer.
Next in the hierarchy is Birla Sun Life's Sunaina da Cunha (Rs 58,568 crore) who, among others, manages two monster funds: Birla Sun Life Cash Plus (Rs 24,806 crore) and Birla Sun Life Savings Fund (Rs 18,237 crore). Lakshmi Iyer, chief investment officer (debt) and head products, Kotak AMC, is also responsible for nearly Rs 60,000 crore assets.
"Your gender won’t help you. Aspiration and passion are equally important. I took a one-month maternity break and resumed work after I had my child,\" says Iyer, who admits balancing pressures of work and life is difficult without a supportive family.
ICICI Prudential MF's Chandni Gupta oversees more than Rs 19,000 crore across numerous schemes, where she is either the fund manager or co-manages them with others. Ditto for Hetal P Shah (Rs 11,100 crore) of Baroda Pioneer MF, Shalini Tibrewala (over Rs 5,400 crore) of JM MF and Suman Prasad of Canara Robeco MF (Rs 3,000 crore).
Delivering consistent performance equates survival, even for women. Says Bekxy Kuriakose, head–fixed income, Principal PNB Asset Management, "The mutual fund industry is a highly competitive one and it keeps fund managers like us on our toes. It’s also highly performance oriented and since the performance is quite objective it’s also easier to measure as compared to other sectors."
On the equity side, UTI MF's veteran fund manager Swati Anil Kulkarni (Rs 14,230 crore) is famous for managing industry's second largest MNC stock fund (UTI MNC Fund) and UTI Mastershare Fund, which has a track-record of nearly three decades of non-stop dividends.
Franklin Templeton's Roshi Jain (Rs 13,640 crore), SBI MF's Sohini Andani (over Rs 11,000 crore) who manages the fifth largest large-cap stock fund (SBI Bluechip Fund), IDFC MF's Meenakshi Dawar (nearly Rs 4,100 crore), Goldman Sachs MF's Payal Wadhwa Kaipunjal (over Rs 4,000 crore), Anitha Rangan of HSBC MF and Mirae MF's Bharti Sawant are among noted women equity-focussed managers.
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