Global mutual funds readying India plans

Fidelity, ABN Amro already here; UBS, Barclays chalk out entry plans.

Leading fund houses from the United States and the United Kingdom are readying for a foray into India, close on the heels of Fidelity and ABN Amro gearing up to commence asset management operations here.

According to industry sources, executives of leading funds have been making exploratory visits here and checking out the market by making discrete calls to leading intermediaries.

Naval Bir Kumar, managing director of Standard Chartered Mutual Fund said, "Many of the top global funds have been taking an interest in India."

Industry circles said, "Global asset managers are taking a second look at India after Fidelity set up shop here."

Fidelity is in the process of getting approvals from Sebi for starting its mutual fund business in India. ABN Amro is in a similar stage of getting process approvals.

One big fund that is reportedly close to filing its application with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is UBS Global Asset Management, a UBS group company. UBS operates in India as a brokerage and as an investment banker. The AMC has total invested assets of $463 billion globally and, apart from having a presence in the US, Europe and Japan, it has offices in Hong Kong, Melbourne, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei in the Asia Pacific region.

Yet another AMC that has been doing the rounds is Barclays, the UK-based financial services company. Representatives of Barclays visited India over the past six months and industry sources said they were interested in exchange traded funds, one of the areas of Barclays' expertise.

With Fidelity and ABN Amro, two of the largest fund houses in the world, already in India, others are also anxious to enter early, especially since mutual fund penetration is hardly 1 per cent of the total assets with the banking system. This low level of penetration offers a good opportunity for new entrants.

Prudential, one of the bigger fund houses in the US, has been talking to various fund houses over the last four or five years. Industry sources, however, said that it would take time for these funds to make a move.

Fidelity studied the Indian market for at least four years before it decided to set up a base here.

The extraordinary foreign fund flows into the Indian markets, the returns from the stock market over the last one year, the relatively low valuations compared with other emerging markets and the appreciation in the value of the rupee were all reasons for global asset managers to come to India, industry circles said.