Women fund managers continue to beat peers, but performance slips

Assets managed by women fund managers in India continue to outperform peers. In 2019, 52% of the total assets under management (AUM) of women fund managers have outperformed the benchmark/peer group average over one-year basis, 55% over three-year basis and 56% over a five-year basis, shows data collated by Morningstar.

Women represent a mere 8% of the total fund managers across fund houses. In percentage terms, the assets handled by women stood at 15% of the overall industry for both open and close-ended schemes, totalling to approximately Rs 3.41 lakh crore, up around 11% from the last year.

But even though women fund managers continue to do better than rivals, their performance has slipped. Data as of 2018 showed that out of the total assets managed by women, 61% of the AUM had outperformed the benchmark/peer group average over one-year basis, 81% over three-year basis and 86% over a five-year basis.

“Though these numbers (outperforming %) has seen a drop from last year, we believe re-categorisation was one of the reasons for this. In addition, some of the significantly large funds have witnessed some underperformance lately, which has skewed the overall numbers. Another interesting point which we observe is that out of the total funds managed by women, approximately 74% of these assets were debt funds and 26% were equity,” said Morningstar.

In 2017, out of the total assets managed by women fund managers, 80% of the AUM had outperformed the benchmark/peer group average over one-year basis, 71% over three-year basis and 72% over five-year basis.

Some of the women fund managers leading the mantle for gender diversification are Lakshmi Iyer – chief investment officer (debt) and head of products at Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co Ltd, Bekxy Kuriakose, head of fixed income at Principal PNB Asset Management Co Pvt Ltd, Sunaina Da Cunha, fund manager at Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co Ltd and Anju Chhajer, senior fund manager at Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management.

The other names that ring a bell instantly from the equity side are Roshi Jain – vice president and fund manager (equities) at Franklin Templeton Asset Management (Ind) Pvt Ltd, Sohini Andani, fund manager at SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd and Swati Kulkarni, executive vice president and fund manager (equities) at UTI Asset Management Company Ltd.

Apart from women fund managers, women investors are surpassing men. According to Scripbox, women are more disciplined with 85% of women being SIP (systematic investment plan) investors versus 80% of men. Women also save more, investing on average 15% of their salary versus men who invest 10%. Moreover, women are more consistent, with only 8% having skipped a SIP versus 11% of men (investors who skipped at least one month). Lastly, women stay invested; only 10% of women sold their mutual fund units versus 15% men, Scripbox data showed. The data was derived by studying the investment behaviour of Scripbox customers from January 2018 to January 2019.