For most of the year, industry had it going good for itself. The equity market was buoyant. The AUM inflows were robust and the retail-investor-led SIP flows were strong and incremental. The distributor community may have had some challenging time this year. On one hand, scheme re-categorisation, while initially niggling, has helped systematise and organise the products in the industry. But on the other hand, the recent reduction in the TER may see decrease in brokerage incomes to the distributors. This, coupled with fresh competition from online platforms, may increase the complications for many distributors.
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USP of investment strategy
Firstly, we seek to think in terms of business cycles rather than in period of month(s) and quarter(s). This naturally puts us on course to find companies that not only tide over the business downcycle but also have the capability to utilise the period to set stage for the next boom phase. We look for companies that have a self-sustaining revenue model, are minimally leveraged (vis-Ã -vis peers) and can add more value for capital deployed than their peers. Quite naturally, these are well-functioning companies with management possessing high integrity and competence.
Impact of SEBI's reclassification
We have always believed that funds are like children. We should only have so many that we can take care of with full attention and care. This attitude helped us in the re-categorisation process. No fund of ours had to undergo a merger.
Becoming more investor-friendly
Our overarching philosophy lets us continuously improve our investor-friendliness. We strive to optimise long-term risk-adjusted performance on a consistent basis. We believe in a disciplined investment process for optimising risk-adjusted returns. All of us at the fund house make our mutual fund investments only in our schemes. That is our way to align our interest with our investors. We believe in managing investor trust.
We are also the first asset-management company in India to sign the United Nations supported Principles of Responsible Investment. We are continuously evaluating our systems and processes to ensure that we provide a good investment and service experience to our investors. We already have a very stringent investor-service and grievance-redressal programme. This has enabled us to keep our quality and service delivery at optimal.
Other than that, we have created a robust digital and offline communication programme to enable constant flow of communication and our thought process to the investors.