Prashant Jain of HDFC MF quitting: who will be handling your mutual funds?

The Chief Investment Officer at HDFC AMC decided to quit last week, and you must be wondering if it will impact your investment with HDFC AMC. Let us look at why there is so much news around the exit of Prashant from HDFC AMC and who will manage your funds now.

Who is Prashant Jain?

• Prashant Jain was associated with HDFC Asset Management Company for the past 19 years.
• He was responsible for AMC's Rs 4.1 lakh crore assets as of June 30, 2022. He was directly managing some of the schemes (HDFC AMC has 26 different schemes), which amount to approximately Rs 1 lakh crore.
• Before joining HDFC Mutual Fund, Jain worked with SBI Mutual Fund and later with Zurich Asset Management. Zurich AMC was acquired by the newly-formed HDFC Mutual Fund in 2003, and Jain held the CIO position of the merged entity.
• He actively managed schemes like HDFC Flexi Cap Fund and HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund that gave impressive returns to investors.

A bit about HDFC Mutual funds

HDFC Mutual Fund is the third largest mutual fund house after SBI Mutual Fund and ICICI Mutual Fund. It has 26 equity mutual funds, but only a few of them are popular. AMC's three most popular funds were all managed by Prashant Jain - HDFC Flexi Cap Fund, HDFC Top 100, and HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund. The other funds that had big AUM were HDFC Mid-Cap Opportunities Fund and HDFC Small-Cap Fund.

Who will handle your mutual fund now?

• Prashant was directly or indirectly looking at all the mutual fund schemes offered by HDFC Mutual Fund. However, post-exit, there will not be a single replacement for him, but his responsibilities will be divided.
• Chirag Setalvad, a senior equity fund manager, working with HDFC Mutual Fund since 2007, will head the equities. 
• Shobhit Mehrotra, the AMC's senior-most fixed income fund manager, will take over as head of fixed income funds.
• Mehrotra and Setalvad have years of experience in managing and leading teams and hence were obvious choices for the fund houses to take charge of equity and fixed income funds. 
• Chirag Setalvad began his mutual fund management career at HDFC AMC in 2000, when the fund house was launched. He worked there till 2004 and then started to work for a US-based private wealth manager till 2007. Chirag returned to HDFC mutual fund and has been with the company since then. 
• Shobhit Mehrotra has been with the fund house since 2004.

What should investors do?

In the last couple of years, HDFC mutual funds have hired many young and experienced fund managers. If you are an existing investor, then, you must stay invested in HDFC AMC schemes and not exit your investment because of this change. The new crop of fund managers is well-equipped to take over the mantle. As per the latest announcements below, changes are made:

• Gopal Agrawal, Anil Bamboli, and Srinivas Ramamurthy will now manage HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund. Gopal Agrawal will manage the equity portion of this fund. He also manages the HDFC Large & Midcap Fund & the HDFC Value Fund.
• Rahul Baijal will take over HDFC Top 100 Fund. He joined the HDFC Mutual Fund recently as a senior fund manager. He had previously worked with Bharti AXA Life Insurance and Sundaram Mutual Fund.
• Roshi Jain will now manage HDFC Flexi Cap Fund. She joined HDFC Mutual Fund in December 2021 as a senior fund manager. Before joining HDFC mutual fund, she was at Franklin Templeton as VP-Portfolio Management.

If there are any more changes or restructuring related to schemes you are invested in, you will be notified by the mutual fund house. You can evaluate a fund manager and make a decision on whether to exit or continue. For now, there is no reason to exit from any HDFC mutual fund schemes. We shall keep you updated in case of any further action.