Saturday, March 7, 2009

Not all is rosy for MF industry!

The mutual fund industry is yet to be back on its feet after the carnage in October last year and despite a rise in assets under management over the last few months, things look bleak for the industry.
In such a scenario, what are new players who planned to enter the AMC business, doing? Are they going ahead with their plans albeit cautiously or can we expect delays?
Although the Indian mutual fund industry regained the Rs 5,00,000 crore mark in February with total assets under management growing by nearly 9 per cent during the month, things are far from rosy for the industry.
The players planning to enter the mutual fund business are also feeling the heat now and it looks like their plans may now have to be delayed or even in some cases shelved.
Sources in the industry believe that the plans to foray into Shinsei, Axis Bank, Goldman Sachs, DLF and HDIL's mutual fund may be delayed despite getting regulatory clearance.
Players such as ASK group, Motilal Oswal and India Infoline are yet to get the regulator's final approval and it could take another year for them to launch operations.
Sammer Kamdar, CEO of Proposed AMC Business at ASK, said, "We understand there is a lot of stress in system. A lot of people are delaying plans, but at ASK we continue our quest for in principle approval.”
Now, with even existing players finding it difficult to grow, is it a good idea for new players to get into the market or should they buy time instead?
Nitin Rakesh, CEO of Motilal Oswal AMC, said, "I won’t be surprised if we hear some announcement of plans being deferred. Even the regulator is taking a hard look at things and understandably, so we are still very much interested."
Meanwhile, it will be clearly tough for these players to get a decent market share given the tough business environment.
So, it makes sense to wait for better conditions before launching operations but given the poor performance of some funds that have launched recently, this wait is likely to be a very long one.

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