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SBI divests 37 pc in MF arm — Signs MoU with SocGen Asset Management

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Mr A.K. Purwar, Chairman, State Bank of India, and Mr Christian d' Allest, Director, International Development, SGAM, at a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday. — Paul Noronha

Mumbai , July 14

STATE Bank of India has decided to divest 37 per cent of its holding in its mutual fund arm, SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd, to Societe Generale Asset Management, for an amount in excess of $35 million.

Both parties have signed a memorandum of understanding to this effect, whereby they agreed to enter into all definitive agreements and other ancillary documents subject to regulatory approvals. Post-divestment, SBI's stake in the MF arm will come down to 67 per cent.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Mr A.K. Purwar, Chairman, SBI, said that the actual inflow of money into the bank was likely to happen by September when all the approvals are in place.

SBI MF has a market share of 3.1 per cent. ``Although it has a respectable reputation, we seem to have lost our way over the past couple of years,'' said Mr Purwar.

With this tie-up, the mutual fund hopes to regain the lost ground in terms of market share in the mutual funds business, he said.

Societe Generale Asset Management is the asset management arm of the large international financial conglomerate Societe Generale Group. The company has aggregate assets under management of over Euro 252 billion worldwide and operates in 20 countries including the US, the UK, Japan, China, Thailand, Korea and Singapore besides the Eurozone countries.

Mr Purwar said that SGAM would bring its expertise in the areas of product development and innovation, economic research and strategy, investments processes, risk control and compliance etc that would greatly benefit SBI MF. SBI will leverage its extensive distribution network to sell the MF products.

At present, SBI Funds management has total assets under management to the tune of Rs 5,600 crore, and has around 810,000 customers. Company officials said that SBI Funds Management would target a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore by next year.

Mr Purwar said that the bank was also scouting for similar foreign joint ventures for its factoring and merchant banking business.

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