Indian MF industry adds just two women fund managers in a year

NEW DELHI: If you are dreaming of an equal participation of women in the financial services industry, perhaps you are born way too early as that day might be far off in the future given the current pace of growth in inclusiveness.

A Morningstar analysis of Indian mutual fund industry shows the number of female fund managers remains dismal. The number rose by just two last year, against 22 in case of males.

“When it comes to gender diversity, the latest findings of our report show of the 376 fund managers operating in the industry, only 30 are women, who are managing funds either as primary/secondary managers or have oversight as heads of equity and debt. The total count of women fund managers has increased from 28 last year to 30 this year,” said the report.

The 30 women fund managers were spread across 19 fund houses, with two fund houses having three or more women fund managers, six fund houses had two and 11 others had at least one female fund manager.

Last year, the total fund manager count stood at 352, 24 less than this year. With a meagre 8 per cent representation as of January 31, women still remain drastically under-represented among the ranks of mutual fund managers, Morningstar said.

These 30 women fund managers managed Rs 4,11,470 crore worth of assets, which is 13.5 per cent of the total asset managed by the industry.

“Over the last few years, while assets managed by women grew, in percentage terms of the overall industry assets, this number has not been something to boast about,” the report said.

Out of the all MF assets managed by women, approximately 43 per cent were fixed income funds (excluding money market, liquid and overnight funds), 26.6 per cent were money market, liquid and overnight funds, 25.1 per cent were equity funds, 4.5 per cent were allocation funds and the solution and other category cumulated to 0.7 per cent.

The report showed that out of the total open-ended assets managed by women fund managers, 80 per cent outperformed the peer group average on a one-year basis, 80 per cent of the AUM outperformed on a three-year basis and 74 per cent outperformed on a five-year basis — a feat truly worth commending.

However, there is certainly a rise in the number of women fund managers in the industry. When the same report came in 2017, there were only 18 women fund managers. This increased to 24 in 2018, 29 in 2019, then fell to 28 in 2020, and again increased to 30 in 2021.