FY24 is turning out to be another good year for the industry as a whole. SIP flows are hitting new highs, B-30 contribution is rising and AuM growth in the last calendar year equaled industry AuM of 10 years ago.
HDFC MF is also enjoying another strong year of growth, backed by excellent performance across products. Style diversity through a richly experienced team is a big strength as the fund house continues to build scale. Navneet believes lot more work needs to be done by his team as well as the industry to take fixed income products into the retail space. Highlight in the hybrids space for the fund house was the 30th anniversary of HDFC BAF (erstwhile HDFC Prudence) – an iconic wealth creator that continues its distinguished journey through market cycles.
HDFC MF’s mission is to be the wealth creator for every Indian, and in this endeavour, it continues to invest in branch expansion even as its push towards 100% digital execution remains unwavering. Its passion to be the most respected asset manager in the world is pushing Navneet and his team to explore cutting edge solutions including AI to keep on improving on fund performance and client servicing.
Every multi-year structural bull market witnesses several corrections of 10% or more, sometimes much deeper upto 20%. All the current concerns around froth in some pockets of the market must be viewed from that context – expect corrections – even deep ones – but stay focused on the longer term picture of an ongoing structural bull market that we clearly are in.
Trinity of uncertain geo-political environment, shorter cycles and gamblification of markets have increased left-tail risk – risks that may perhaps have lower probability of occurring, but have much greater impact should they occur.
Indian MF industry is where the US industry was in the early80s – at the cusp of a huge growth spurt lasting two decades which created unbelievable scale for US MF players. Channelizing Indian household savings into MFs represents one of the best business opportunities available in India today.