More than the pressure to perform, greater opportunities in a booming market make fund managers to move
Mumbai: The last few months have seen a significant churn among fund managers. More than 15 fund managers have either seen a change in their responsibilities, shifted to another fund house or moved to managing a different scheme.
Fund managers are in a market where good and different career opportunities exist. Some of the fund managers who had performed well have changed jobs for better work profiles.
Those looking for different profiles have become product heads in some of the fund houses looking after the business aspect. Some of them decided to leave because of rising competitive pressure on performance of the funds that they managed.
A senior official from a foreign fund house said most of the fund managers are getting good opportunities as the market is doing well. ”Also, there are alternative opportunities available.”
Fund managers also have found good prospects in the insurance industry, which continues to grow at a robust pace.
The human resources head of a mid-sized fund house said, “There is also a rush towards insurance industry. There are a lot of regulatory changes in the mutual fund industry, and fund managers find insurance regulator IRDA, giving greater flexibility to insurers.” According to industry estimates, over 30 fund managers have moved out of the mutual fund industry, seeking better prospects in other financial services sectors like insurance.
The resultant shortage of fund management talent has led to fund houses hiring credit analysts or research analysts, including from rating agencies, as fund managers.
There is added pressure on talent availability as new fund houses launch operations. Six fund houses - Edelweiss, Peerless, Pramerica, Axis, Motilal Oswal and IDBI launched operations in 2010, straining the already stretched fund management talent.
Mahendra Jajoo from Tata Mutual Fund joined Pramerica as Executive Director and Head of Fixed Income, R Shivkumar joined Axis Mutual Fund from Sundaram Mutual Fund and Gautam Kaul moved to IDBI Mutual as head of Fixed Income from Religare Mutual Fund. Suyash Choudhary shifted to IDFC Mutual Fund from HSBC Mutual Fund.
A leading mutual fund distributor based in Mumbai said, "A lot of fund manager have changed recently. This would really impact the performance of fund they managed, because every fund manager has a different strategy of managing a fund. If a fund manager stays with the fund for a longer period, it provides stability in fund management. When a new fund manager comes, he may have a different strategy of managing the fund.”
