The Hindu Business Line : Asset management cos go on hiring spree

IT'S hiring time for the country's Rs 1,00,000 crore-plus asset management industry, buoyed as it is by a host of positive factors which have combined to bring good tidings for the players who dominate it. Mutual funds, riding on the back of a rising market and new business opportunities, are becoming active recruiters.

HR managers at fund houses, after recently unleashing a spate of movements within the industry, are looking at engaging more hands, especially on the sales and marketing front. The idea is to generate business by adding more investors to their already-growing roster of clients.

Medium and large AMCs have been hiring new people for some time now, their recruitment numbers expected to increase with the arrival of new players. The latter, mutual fund circles say, would include the likes of ABN-Amro and Sahara (which is taking over the AC Muthiah-promoted First India). Added to this list is Fidelity, which ranks among the world's top names in investment management; the US group is expected to set up shop in India in the near future.

That MFs are a happening arena is also evident from the intra-industry changes that have been happening quite rapidly. The sources particularly refer to the movement of sales personnel from one fund to another, a part of it the result of the M&As that have taken place lately — HDFC & Zurich and Principal & SUN F&C. In the case of Zurich, for instance, a few of the heavyweights did move out; they included Mr Prashant Jain, the equity fund manager who joined HDFC, and Mr Rajan Krishnan, the sales head who signed up with Principal.

"Yes, the HR scene is hotting up," said Mr Prakash Dalal, who handles business development at Kotak Mahindra MF, adding that the situation should be seen in the context of recent goings-on. "Today, funds are reaching out to new segments of investors. Their retail business is burgeoning. Consequently, sales teams are being enlarged," he pointed out.

MFs are also looking at the possibility of beefing up compliance departments, especially so in the light of new regulatory stipulations. And they are further adding to their business development strengths. Tata MF, for example, recently picked up Mr Pitambar Choudhury (formerly with SBI MF) from insurance company Aviva to oversee its business development functions. A similar move has also been witnessed at Cholamandalam MF, with the arrival of Mr Vineet Potnis as the sales head.

The two important areas where recruitment is not really happening are fund management and operations, the sources said. The former, according to some sections, is not quite active in terms of HR changes as an existing fund manager often continues to do the job despite increase in corpus size. On the operations front, a certain level of outsourcing is becoming increasingly evident, supported as it is by advances in information technology.

The activity on the MF front should not be looked at in isolation, feel fund houses. Stockbrokers too have been employing lately and so are distribution firms. The scenario in Kolkata, among the major markets for MFs, reflects the trend, the sources maintained. In recent times, there have been shifts from HDFC to Deutsche and from Zurich to Principal. The city has also seen the lone GIC MF representative move out to Bajaj Allianz. ING MF is also expected to spearhead some recruitment for itself.

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