The mutual industry has been seeing some churn at the top management level of late. The movements come at a time when the industry has been grappling with redemption pressure in equity schemes and folio closures among retail investors.
Aashish Somaiyaa, who is heading the retail business at ICICI Prudential AMC, is moving to Motilal Oswal AMC as its chief executive, according to sources. He will be replacing Nitin Rakesh, who left the company earlier this year. Somaiyaa has earlier headed ICICI Prudential AMC?s product development and institutional business divisions. Overall, he has about 13 years of experience in sales, distribution, product development and marketing of mutual funds across retail and institutional segments.
Sundaram Mutual?s Satish Ramanathan, director and head of equities, will step down from his active duties as head of equities with effect from December 7. Ramanathan would stay with the firm till the end of December to ensure a smooth transition of his responsibilities, the company said on Friday. Harsha Viji, managing director, Sundaram Mutual, acknowledged that Ramanathan was a key member of the AMC?s senior fund management team: ?He maintained Sundaram?s values on investor focus and governance. Steering through the turbulent times, he continued the long tradition of performance in flagship fund, Sundaram Select Mid Cap, helping it grow to become the largest Mid Cap fund in the industry.?
About a week back, Sanjay Sachdev, the chief executive of Tata MF, quit the AMC, citing personal reasons. Sachdev has about 25 years of experience in the finance industry and has worked with the Principal Financial Group (Principal) and Shinsei Bank in the past.
Other top honchos that have made an exit this year include Arindam Ghosh, CEO of Mirae Asset; Piyush Surana, CEO of Daiwa Mutual Fund; Rajan Krishnan, CEO of Baroda Pioneer AMC and chief marketing officer of UTI AMC Jaideep Bhattacharya, who is currently the managing director of Baroda Pioneer.
The mutual fund industry has been struggling ever since entry loads were done away with in August 2009. Equity schemes have seen inflows in only thirteen months after the entry load ban was enforced. Equity funds have seen outflows in nine out of the 10 months this year, with net outflows totalling R11,398 crore. The industry?s month-end assets under management stood at R7.68 lakh crore in October.
