Ashish Gupta, chief investment officer (CIO) at Axis AMC, believes profit-taking in the markets is not much of a concern because foreign investors remain under-invested. He tells Siddhant Mishra that the fund house has focused on overhauling its sales and distribution structure, besides diversifying schemes.
Edited excerpts:
Your thoughts on the markets in an election year and concerns of profit-booking.
The recent state poll results have brought confidence of stability. Plus, even the US heads into polls this year, so the uncertainty will play out globally. As far as profit-booking goes, I don’t see much cause for concern because foreign investors remain under-invested in India. On the retail side, there have been consistent flows, largely via systematic investment plans (SIPs). This is more of an ‘asset allocation decision’ rather than trading bets with the intention to take money home once the indices rise. What is important is that the markets did well, and earnings were strong in the first two quarters. We need the earnings momentum to continue.
Will the AMC’s focus be more on passive schemes?
Passives do address a need, but I am agnostic between active and passive schemes. The high SIP levels show that new investors are getting a good experience. The longer the investment horizon, the better the returns. As long as they are coming in for the long haul, the mode of investing doesn’t matter much. The regulators have done a great job in this regard. Earlier, a lot of mis-selling took place, when there were upfront commissions. Now, commissions are trail-based, it is in the interest of sales people that customers have a good experience.
How do you see the competition influencing the way business is done?
We are only beginning to scratch the surface in terms of number of investors. Most of new AMCs are coming in with differentiated distribution strategies. It won’t be a case of everyone vying for a share of the same pie, but the pie itself getting bigger. The way fintechs are operating shows mutual fund distribution strategies are changing. The number of SIPs opened by them in December has been significant. Besides direct sales, we have the distributor channel, private wealth channel, distribution through banks, and now fintechs are also becoming big.
But with no incentives, distributors are unhappy …
That is not necessarily true.
Distributors have made this a family business. Supposing one is managing `500-600 crore in AUM (assets under management), there is a perpetuity of `5-6 crore. Notwithstanding changes to the expense structure, even if the markets grow at 11-12%, the AUM will double every five years or so. As much as the industry has prospered, so have the distributors.
You took charge at a testing time…
Despite the reaction in the market to the events at the AMC, we didn’t see massive outflows. Most of the investors and distributors remained supportive. However, some large institutions, who invest primarily in our debt funds, had put us on hold. We have put in checks and balances in place and as a result, the institutions have now come back. Our debt AUM, which was `70,000 crore in March 2023, had exceeded Rs 90,000 crore by September.
How has the approach and business strategy changed?
We have a new sales and distribution structure in place. There is not much of a change on the debt side. What we focused on was a marketing push to increase the market share. We strengthened the organisation structure on the sales side, but not so much on the fund management side. With markets having become value-focussed, we have decided to diversify the pool of schemes.