The New Breed

Fund People

 Meet the young breed of fund managers, who've made their mark and briskly too, in an atmosphere where competition has cut more throats than can be counted. Times are a-changing and gone are the days when the salt & pepper look was mandatory for the guy investing your hard earned money. Trust is no longer synonymous with age and careers are made on the basis of performance alone.

 It takes more than just dedication, though. Perhaps a strong disposition to climb the ladder rather quickly, and may be taking the 'right calls' in investments lead these fund managers to where they currently stand - managing assets worth thousands of crore.

 Their average age would belie their accomplishments: most of them are in their early thirties, some much younger. We've attempted to track their journey up to their current standing and it only leaves us hoping that more of their ilk join the bandwagon.

 With the bourses looking up, investment portfolios are only growing bigger, and mutual funds seem to be grounding themselves well. With investor expectations soaring high, the role of a fund manager has become more critical.

 Bekxy Kuriakose

 Age: 25 years

 Fund house: SBI MF

 Assets Under Management: About Rs 700 crore

 The youngest candidate in our chronicle, Kuriakose believes that it's not always possible to be the number 1, but a consistent track record of posting good returns in the long term is a rational objective. "I take calculated risks, so that my schemes yield above average returns," she acknowledges. With a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Kuriakose set foot in the securities sector three years ago, when she joined SBI Mutual Funds as a dealer in government securities and research analyst.

 Currently, she manages three debt funds, of which the Magnum Gilt Fund is the principal scheme. She feels though training has its own significance, experience definitely augments one's skills. Suited more to the fixed-income framework, she is quite settled in her present job and hopes to handle a larger corpus in the none-too-distant future.

 Manoj Kumar Swain

 Age: 28 years

 Fund house: Standard Chartered MF

 Assets Under Management: About Rs 1700 crore

 Swain manages the Grindlays Super Saver Income Fund, both the short- and medium-term plans at Standard Chartered Mutual Fund. In the last one year, the fund has grown more than four times. With a career spanning about six years with various financial institutions such as Times Guaranty, UTI Bank and ICICI Bank, Swain garnered substantial experience in the debt sector. "The most important thing in fund management is to sell the scheme in the right manner. Every fund has its own objectives, and one must be courageous enough to take risks within the predetermined parameters," he says. His trek hitherto has been fairly smooth, and that in itself is very unusual. "Here performance is measured on a day-to-day basis; the accountability, therefore, is much greater. It is not possible to track minute movements in the market and therefore there is always room for improvement."

 A cricket enthusiast, he travels from Andheri to Churchgate to play a match on those Sundays when he finds time off his newly married life.

 Badrish Kulhalli

 Age: 31 years

 Fund house: Alliance MF

 Assets Under Management: Rs 85 crore

 People always remember a slip-up more than a good deal," remarks Kulhalli, part of the investment team managing the debt schemes at Alliance Capital Mutual Fund. It was the attraction towards interest rates and derivatives markets that propelled this mechanical engineer from Pune to consider a career in finance. He says, "A market is a collection of people and just theoretical knowledge is not enough to take your decisions. This is where experience clarifies your perspective." He hopes to imbibe his father's patience in dealing with people. He does not believe in promising the moon but more importantly, communicating the risk-reward trade-off to the investor.

 The Alliance Government Securities Fund, managed by Kulhalli, won the CNBC - BNP Paribas Mutual Fund of the Year, 2003 award for the best open-ended gilt fund in the one-year category. He is inclined towards managing fixed income funds with a bigger corpus in future.

 Jyoti Vaswani

 Age: 33 years

 Fund house: JM Mutual

 Assets Under Management: Rs 30 crore

 Vaswani recalls her investment in Divi's Labs, which yielded a return of about 200 per cent since its initial public offering, and calls it as one of the best deals she's made in her career spanning over eight years. After obtaining a chartered financial analyst degree, she joined Prabhudas Lilladher, a Mumbai-based brokerage, as a part of their equity research team.

 Managing three schemes in the JM Mutual Fund stable, her investment philosophy is based on the concept of a 'blend' fund, which attempts to integrate growth and value. She believes that it is critical to have an understanding of the market and a gut feel of movements. She admires her chief executive officer Krishnamurthy Vijayan's "never say die" approach and endeavours to imbibe his attitude towards work.

 Ramanathan K

 Age: 30 years

 Fund house: Birla Sunlife MF

 Assets Under Management: About Rs 4700 crore

 In the mutual fund industry, you want to buy more when the market is down, but the investor's psyche does not always permit this. They may get jittery and may want to redeem the investments immediately, which does not leave us with enough liquid assets for purchase," explains Ramanathan, joint fund manager of fixed income funds at Birla Sunlife Mutual Funds. He believes in taking a conservative approach toward fund management as it is a prerequisite for this asset class. "Capital preservation is very important in the fixed income funds," he says.

 Having done his graduation from the S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, Ramanathan believes good analytical skills and the ability to think online are vital for a fund manager. "There are a lot of areas in securities, like hedge funds and high-yield funds, which are as yet unexplored and the future for this market is very good. I hope to handle some of these in the coming years."