 
HARD
TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
FUNDS
How
mutual funds are going global
BEST
FUND MANAGERS
How
mutual funds are going global
TIME
TO BUY DEBT FUNDS?
Fund
managers prefer short-term schemes
FUND
MANAGER OF THE YEAR
Sandeep
Kothari
Equity
FM of the year
FUND
CAFE
Fund
managers discuss the future of the industry
DISTRIBUTION
OF FUNDS
A
profitable proposition
FUND
DIRECTORY
The
report card of funds across categories and fund houses
SECTOR
FUNDS
Banking
sector funds have given the best returns
DATA
BANK
FUND
MANAGER 2006
Home
|
Safety
first
RAM
PRASAD SAHU
You
need to filter out market noise to stay ahead of competition, feels
Suyash Choudhary, fund manager, Standard
Chartered Asset Management
Debt
fund managers have not had an easy time this past year. The volatility
for tenures at the shorter end has been high — interest rates
have dropped by as much as 300-350 points in the last six months
for one-year corporate paper. As if that were not enough, a credit
crisis erupted overseas creating some amount of risk aversion and
a huge amount of uncertainty.
|
But
through all this, Suyash Choudhary, fund manager of Standard
Chartered Asset Management, has steered his liquid funds out
of trouble. The
Grindlays Floating Rate Fund-Short Term plan has turned in
a reasonable 6.18 per cent over the last year and earned this
Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix fan the Debt Fund Manager of
the year award.
NO
COMPROMISES ON QUALITY
When
the difference of a few basis point in the returns can mean
an increase or decrease in the corpus of a few hundred crores,
should you buy lower quality paper for a higher credit spread?
For Choudhary, an IIM Kolkata alumnus, who handles five funds
with a total corpus of about Rs 8,000 crore, the answer is
clear. “We never take aggressive calls on credit risk.
We would rather manage interest rates more actively.”
he says.
The
29-year old economics graduate from Delhi University’s
Hansraj College follows Stanchart's 3D Factor process which
captures the fundamentals and valuation parameters that affect
the market and suggests a suitable duration to manage a portfolio.Choudhary
studies data on liquidity, inflation and bases his decisions
on the emerging trends. “The idea behind looking at the
data and following processes is not to get stuck in an unfavourable
situation,” he says.
SPOTTING
THE TREND
This
helps him break into some of the rallies early on. For instance,
the fund manager saw his chance to make gains on one year
corporate paper which peaked in early April at 11 per cent.
A fortnight later when they were back in the 10.75 per cent
zone, he realised that they had stabilised.
|
 |
|
SUYASH
CHOUDHARY
Fund Manager, Standard Chartered Asset Management
Assets
under management: Rs 8,000 crore
Schemes
under management: Liquidity Manager, Grindlays Floating
Rate Fund - short and long term plans, Cash, Liquidity Manager
Plus
Best
risk adjusted debt fund: Grindlays Floating Rate ST (AUM
- Rs 153 crore)
1
year return: 6.17 per cent
|
“There
was some aversion to buying corporate paper because credit growth
was high and RBI was hawkish,” says Choudhary, who never misses
a chance to partner his wife for a game of tennis on his Play Station
2. He was reasonably sure that credit growth would slow down and
that the impact of the previous rate hikes was yet to filter through
to the broader economy.
Continued
on next page
Business
Standard •
FUND
MANAGER • October 2007
|
