The Hindu Business Line : Sahara MF open to further acquisitions

Aimed at emerging as one of the premier mutual fund houses in the country with assets under management (AUM) of around Rs 5,000 crore in the next three years, Sahara Mutual Fund, part of the Sahara India Pariwar, said it is open to inorganic growth as well.

According to the Sahara MF Chief Executive Officer, Mr Rajiv Shastri, the company is open to further acquisitions to grow in size in terms of AUM, products and investor base.

Earlier, Sahara Group entered the mutual fund business by acquiring the erstwhile First India Mutual Fund in 2003, promoted by Dr A.C. Muthiah with equity participation from two overseas partners.

"We are keeping our antenna up and looking at acquisition targets with reasonable valuations. We are not happy with the recent acquisitions in the industry, since we feel that they were not reasonably priced. They were unrealistically high priced," Mr Shastri told Business Line.

However, he was quick to add that Sahara MF was not actively considering any acquisition at present. "As and when attractive acquisition opportunities arise, we will grab them," he said.

Mr Shastri also made it clear that Sahara India Pariwar has no plans to sell its MF business. The group has last month exited the aviation business by selling Air Sahara to Jet Airways. "Aviation was not the core business of our Group. We will never divest core businesses of Para banking, finance and allied areas."

At present, Sahara MF has an AUM of around Rs 600 crore with six products. The company expects to mobilise around Rs 200 crore from the ongoing new fund offer (NFO) of Infrastructure Fund. This is an open-ended fund aimed at providing long-term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity-related instruments of companies in the infrastructure sector.

In a bid to further expand its product portfolio, Sahara MF is currently in the process of lining up a slew of new schemes. The company has recently obtained the approvals of SEBI for launching two new products - Dividend Yield Fund (equity) and Floating Rate Fixed Income Fund (debt).

The MF is currently awaiting the clearance of regulator for two more products - Retailing Fund (equity) and Fixed Maturity Fund (debt).

More Stories on : Mutual Funds | Mergers & Acquisitions

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Sahara MF open to further acquisitions

MFs ask for REIT, tax sops for debt-oriented funds in Budget

Steel, iron ore stocks turn active on Rly Budget

Reliance Energy Ventures makes debut in SEs

Mascon board okays GDR issue

Bear domination

Kernex up on Rly order hopes

Sensex loses out from positive track midway

BhOB board not to renew CEO contract — IPO scam cited as reason behind it