Dawnay to launch India specific funds

Dawnay Day Group, the UK-based boutique financial services firm, is launching two offshore India-specific funds early next year for investing in the booming domestic markets. Besides even as it explores investment opportunities in other asset classes, including real-estate, in the country.

The proposed funds, which will be raised from investors in the US and Europe, is expected to mobilise "hundreds of millions of dollars," 55-year-old chief executive officer of Dawnay Day Brokers Ltd Ian Morley said, in an interview.

Dawnay Day AV Financial Services, through its joint venture in India with Alok Vajpeyi, former president of DSP-Merrill Lynch, has already forayed into mutual funds, wealth management and equity broking business in the country.

Morley, who is also chairman of Dawnay Day Milroy, an asset management company, said one fund would be an opportunistic fund (Fulcrum DD AV India Opportunity Fund), betting its investments in large cap stocks, and derivative products.

The second fund, a deep value fund, would have a longer term view with investments in small and mid-cap stocks.

The bellwether stock index Sensex has appreciated about 50 per cent during this calendar as foreign funds numbering nearly 1,000 pumped in over $ 8 billion into equity markets to add to the over $ 10.7 billion they invested during 2005.

On the real estate sector, Dawnay Day, which manages four property funds - one each in the UK, East Europe and Germany, and one hotel fund for UK, was exploring opportunity for launching a property fund for India, he said. "We feel the party is just beginning in the property sector," he said.

Dawnay Day, Morley said, looked at investment opportunities across the globe early this year and found India and China to be the most attractive.