Dawnay, Day to float MF, offshore fund

Dawnay, Day AV (DDAV), the Indian subsidiary of the UK-based Dawnay, Day, is rolling out its full range of financial and property services. Dawnay will set up a mutual fund, an offshore fund of funds and also invest in budget hotels.

DDAV has recruited Arpit Agrawal as its chief executive officer. Agrawal was earlier heading the private banking business of the country's second largest bank, ICICI Bank. The Dawnay, Day subsidiary has also hired Seshadri Bharathan as head of retail operations.

It has also acquired a 50,000 sq ft space at Phoenix Mills complex in central Mumbai to house about 400 employees, said Alok Vajpeyi, vice-chairman and managing director of DDAV.

DDAV plans to launch an offshore fund-of-funds (FoF) called Fulcrum with a corpus of $70-$100 billion in April 2006. For its domestic wealth management services business, DDAV aims at having Rs 5,000 crore of assets under advice over five years.

A fund for investment in Indian equities is also being planned, in which the parent will also invest $15-$20 million. The company would soon apply to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for launching its mutual fund.