Ravi Ratanpal: Fund manager of JPMorgan's trouble-hit schemes

India Short Term Income Fund and India Treasury Fund have been in focus, with their high exposure to Amtek Auto

For the past fortnight, two schemes of JPMorgan AMC -- India Short Term Income Fund and India Treasury Fund -- have been in focus due to their high exposure to the debt instrument of financially stressed Amtek Auto. Care Ratings had suspended ratings on Amtek Auto’s bank facility and debentures on August 7 as the company did not furnish information that the rating agency required. This led to a liquidity crisis and the fund house “gated” the redemption, a rare instance in the sector's history.

The fund manager managing both schemes is Ravi Ratanpal. An MBA in Finance and a certified Financial Risk Manager from the Global Association of Risk Professionals, Ratanpal has been with the JPMorgan group since 2004. At present, he is an associate fund manager (debt) at the fund house.

JPMorgan did not respond to Business Standard’s request to interview Ratanpal.

Ratanpal, as his profile on the JPMorgan website says, has experience in debt markets research. Prior to his moving into the asset management team here, he was part of investment banking research. “I am an associate fund manager for fixed income portfolios at JPMorgan Asset Management India. My expertise is credit and economic research and fixed income investment ideas. My expertise is also in Indian corporates with dollar bonds outstanding in the Asia credit market,” says Ratanpal’s LinkedIn profile summary.

This month, he completes five years with the India Treasury Fund. Ratanpal had been managing this since September 2011. In January 2012, he was asked to manage the India Short Term Income Fund as well. Both funds together had assets under management of Rs 2,964 crore as on July 31, 2015. Before Ratanpal, both funds were managed by Namdev Babu Chougule, who now heads fixed income at JPMorgan AMC.



Till the Amtek episode, the India Short Term Income Fund under-performed the category average in eight of the 12 quarters up to end-June. The India Treasury Fund did much better, beating the category average in 10 out of 12 quarters. However, both funds face one of their worst phases in recent times. During the month ending September 4, the Treasury Fund lost 1.2 per cent of its value; the Short Term Income Fund is down 2.9 per cent. As of July 31, the two schemes had an exposure of Rs 200 crore in Amtek Auto's debt issuance.