 "Meet the BS Fund Managers of the Year")
In a tough year marked by volatility, debt fund managers from Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund and equity wealth managers from ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund outmatched their peers and their respective benchmarks to win the Business Standard Fund Manager of the Year awards.
While Sachin Padwal-Desai and Umesh Sharma of Franklin Templeton won the award for the debt category, S Naren and Mittul Kalawadia of ICICI Prudential took the honours in the equity segment. What helped Padwal-Desai and Sharma was their ability to pick underpriced securities across the yield curve, indicating a bottom-up approach, over and above macro parameters.
The duo, which managed funds to the tune of Rs 11,000 crore (across five funds), gave returns ranging from four per cent to 8.2 per cent, while the respective benchmarks yielded only between 3.45 per cent and 7.73 per cent.
The winners were decided by a distinguished four-member jury led by G N Bajpai, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The others in the jury were: Pratip Chaudhury, who retired as State Bank of India chairman in September; Pradip Shah, chairman, IndAsia Fund Advisors; and Ashvin Parekh, advisor (financial services), Ernst & Young.
The jury said the winners were decided on the basis of their ability to deliver consistent returns and the quality of portfolio.
The jury put their faith on fund managers who scored high on risk-adjusted returns rather than absolute returns that came with unnecessary risks. The risk-free return benchmark was the average return of the 91-day Treasury bills during the 12-month period ended September 2013.
The details of the jury meeting and the investment philosophy of the Fund Managers of the Year have been published in the Fund Manager, a special 16-page tabloid being distributed free with today’s edition.
The tabloid also covers the discussions of the Business Standard Fund Café where six of the country’s leading fund managers came together to discuss the way forward for the mutual fund industry, which, according to them, offered the most transparent investment vehicles. The consensus was that investors needed to understand the industry better and should not focus only on short-term returns. The participants in the panel discussions included HDFC Mutual Fund CEO Milind Barve, Reliance Capital Asset Management CEO Sundeep Sikka, ICICI Prudential AMC MD & CEO Nimesh Shah, L&T Mutual Fund CEO Ashu Suyash, Birla Sun Life AMC CEO A Balsubramanian and SBI Mutual Fund MD & CEO Deepak Chatterjee.
While Sachin Padwal-Desai and Umesh Sharma of Franklin Templeton won the award for the debt category, S Naren and Mittul Kalawadia of ICICI Prudential took the honours in the equity segment. What helped Padwal-Desai and Sharma was their ability to pick underpriced securities across the yield curve, indicating a bottom-up approach, over and above macro parameters.
The duo, which managed funds to the tune of Rs 11,000 crore (across five funds), gave returns ranging from four per cent to 8.2 per cent, while the respective benchmarks yielded only between 3.45 per cent and 7.73 per cent.
More From This Section
On the other hand, Naren and Kalawadia were on-the-money when they bet on export-oriented and global-focused companies that benefitted from India’s poor fiscal situation and a weak rupee. The two fund managers, with a combined average corpus of Rs 2,721 crore (in two funds), gave returns to the tune of 5.5 per cent, while the benchmark index could give returns of just 0.56 per cent.
The winners were decided by a distinguished four-member jury led by G N Bajpai, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The others in the jury were: Pratip Chaudhury, who retired as State Bank of India chairman in September; Pradip Shah, chairman, IndAsia Fund Advisors; and Ashvin Parekh, advisor (financial services), Ernst & Young.
The jury said the winners were decided on the basis of their ability to deliver consistent returns and the quality of portfolio.
The jury put their faith on fund managers who scored high on risk-adjusted returns rather than absolute returns that came with unnecessary risks. The risk-free return benchmark was the average return of the 91-day Treasury bills during the 12-month period ended September 2013.
The details of the jury meeting and the investment philosophy of the Fund Managers of the Year have been published in the Fund Manager, a special 16-page tabloid being distributed free with today’s edition.
The tabloid also covers the discussions of the Business Standard Fund Café where six of the country’s leading fund managers came together to discuss the way forward for the mutual fund industry, which, according to them, offered the most transparent investment vehicles. The consensus was that investors needed to understand the industry better and should not focus only on short-term returns. The participants in the panel discussions included HDFC Mutual Fund CEO Milind Barve, Reliance Capital Asset Management CEO Sundeep Sikka, ICICI Prudential AMC MD & CEO Nimesh Shah, L&T Mutual Fund CEO Ashu Suyash, Birla Sun Life AMC CEO A Balsubramanian and SBI Mutual Fund MD & CEO Deepak Chatterjee.