When Vetri Subramaniam, group president and head-equity, UTI AMC Ltd, took over in early 2017, the fund’s equity schemes were showing poor performance. The processes, he says, have helped improve performance and streamline the team’s functioning. A year later, challenging equity markets are a good testing ground
Which market segment are you more comfortable with at the moment?
In the last 5-7 years, we have been in a very different environment. If I look at how funds have performed, stock picking has made a bigger difference to the outcomes in this period rather than sector selection. You would argue that stock selection is always important, but 2003-08—just to take another period—was all about sector selection.
The current trend will continue. But when the market gets manic depressive about certain areas, it tends to throw up opportunities, simply because valuations start to look attractive. Metals is a classic reflector; it looked down in late 2015 and early 2016, but recovered later. Recently, only 2-3 segments have demonstrated that kind of impact—IT, pharma and corporate lenders. Another segment is companies in the utility space.
