Prashant Jain's resignation as the Chief Investment Officer of HDFC AMC has created quite a flurry.
We have had high conviction on Prashant’s management skills and execution capabilities. His unwavering focus on a long-term buy and hold approach, his resolve to stick to his high conviction investments even during testing times and his willingness to endure short term-pain in favour of long-term gains lead to a unique style of management. Therefore, his exit is a big change to say the least. We think that it’s important to evaluate how this approach and style of investment will change as his funds change hands.
As of now, the fund house has not officially disclosed the names of the managers who will take over his funds. We are in touch with the fund house for an update and this will be shared once they have decided on the managers internally.
Given these factors, we believe that it would be prudent to place his funds ‘Under Review’, until we have more clarity on the new managers and the changes that we are likely to witness with respect to the investment style and portfolio construction.
HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund
- Category: Dynamic Asset Allocation
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating (August 2021): Bronze
- Analyst Rating (July 2022): Under Review
- Fund Management: Prashant Jain since February 1994
HDFC Flexi Cap
- Category: Flexi Cap
- Star Rating: 3 stars
- Analyst Rating (August 2021): Silver (Direct), Bronze (Regular)
- Analyst Rating (July 2022): Under Review
- Fund Management: Prashant Jain since June 2003
HDFC Top 100
- Category: Large Cap
- Star Rating: 2 stars
- Analyst Rating (June 2021): Silver
- Analyst Rating (July 2022): Under Review
- Fund Management: Prashant Jain since June 2003
That said, although the equity investment team has witnessed enhanced turnover over the last few years, the fund house has made an effort to hire very experienced individuals.
Some of the recent hires at the AMC include:
- Navneet Munot – The AMC hired Navneet Munot as their Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer effective February 2021. He has over 27 years’ experience in financial services. Prior to this, he worked with SBI Funds Management Private Limited as an Executive Director and CIO and was a key member of the Executive Committee since December 2008.
- Gopal Agrawal - Joined the fund house on July 9, 2020. Prior to joining HDFC, he was with DSP Mutual Fund as Head of Macro Strategy & Senior Fund Manager. He was also associated with Tata Asset Management and Mirae Asset Global Investments India Ltd as CIO and Chief Investment Strategist. He was instrumental in setting up Mirae’s Indian fund management arm His typically prefers plying a valuation conscious approach and runs a diversified portfolio.
- Roshi Jain – Jain was the Vice President and senior portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Asset Management has been hired as a Senior Vice President – Equities at HDFC AMC effective December 2021. We have covered her fund quite extensively in the past and have a positive opinion on her capabilities as a fund manager.
- Rahul Baijal – He was a Senior fund manager at Sundaram Mutual Fund has joined HDFC Mutual Fund as a Senior Fund Manager as of July 2022. He was a specialist large cap manager at Sundaram and we have previously covered his funds while he was associated with them.
- Srinivasan Ramamurthy - They have prompted Ramamurthy into fund management effective December 2021. Ramamurthy joined the AMC in October 2020 and was previously associated with Mahindra Manulife as a senior manager – equity funds. He manages the equity portion of a few of their hybrid funds.
In addition, the team continues to have Chirag Setalwad, who is seasoned manager and now been designated as Head-Equities. All the fund managers in the team has over a decade of portfolio management experience.
While the Prashant’s exit has created a vacuum, the team is still fairly well-resourced with experienced managers and analysts.