DSP Merrill Lynch begins portfolio management

DSP Merrill Lynch Investment Managers is getting into portfolio management services (PMS). In addition, the asset management company has tied up with Allianz Bajaj Life Insurance Company to provide the latter non-discretionary advisory services for its unit-linked insurance scheme.

Sam Ghosh, country manager, Allianz Bajaj, said the alliance was prompted by the need to have expert fund management.

Alok Vajpeyi, president, DSP Merrill Lynch Fund Managers, said while his team would provide advise, it was up to Allianz whether they wanted to accept it or not.

DSPML Mutual Fund is targetting a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore in the first year of operations under its PMS. It is mostly targetting institutional customers, including foreign institutional investors (FIIs), Vajpeyi said.

The PMS will be managed by a separate team with a fund manager heading it. "We have already tied up with large institutional clients for this division," he said, adding that FIIs, high net worth investors, non-resident Indians and corporates which want their money managed as a treasury function can put their money in their PMS. The threshold limit of the service is Rs one crore.

Incidentally, DSPML Mutual Fund has obtained a licence for both discretionary and non-discretionary advisory services under its PMS portfolio.

Recently UTI Mutual Fund had launched a PMS scheme. Most other mutual fund houses - especially those in the private sector - run their own PMS schemes.