Fidelity Investments is in talks to sell its India mutual fund business and is seeking a valuation of Rs 1,000 crore for the unit, a report on a business website said citing a person with direct knowledge of the development.
Fidelity's India fund management arm, which was launched in 2004, may attract interest from a large number of fund houses including Goldman Sachs' asset management unit, said the report.
Advisors representing Fidelity circulated a "request for proposal" to companies interested in buying the asset last week, it said.
The fund manager may retain a small team in India that will advise investors on its India-focused offshore funds, the report said.
A spokesman for Fidelity's asset management arm in India did not immediately respond to a mail from Reuters seeking comment.
Fidelity managed assets worth about Rs 8,800 crore as of end-December 2011, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India, making it the 15th largest company in India's competitive asset management business.
The company's average assets under management has slightly fallen from Rs 9,100 crore at the beginning of the last year, the data showed, with India's main market index posting a drop of nearly 25% in 2011.
Assets managed by fund managers in India rose to Rs 5.9 lakh crore as of March 2011 from Rs 2.3 lakh crore in March 2006, according to a study by research and consultancy company PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Lured by the long-term prospects of Asia's third-largest economy, overseas fund managers, such as US-based T Rowe Price Group and Fidelity, have been buying into Indian money managers or setting up operations on their own.
Nippon Life Insurance earlier this month agreed to pay $290 million for a 26% stake in the asset management unit of Indian financial services provider Reliance Capital.
Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs last year bought India's Benchmark Asset Management, which managed about $700 million in assets at that time.
However, the sharp fall in the equity markets and the recent regulatory changes such as the removal of the entry load, or a commission charged by a mutual fund distributor for selling a product, has added to the competitive pressure in the sector.
