Despite an increase in tally, women only form 8% of India's mutual fund managers: Report

India has witnessed an increase in female representation in the fund managers space, although women still account for a meagre 8 per cent of the total number of fund managers in the country's asset management industry, a report by Morningstar showed on Friday.

Of the 376 fund managers, 30 are women, who are managing funds either as primary or secondary managers or have oversight as heads of equity or debt. The number of such female fund managers was 28 last year.

Interestingly, the total number of fund managers too saw a healthy increase this year up from 352 managers seen last year.

The 30 women fund managers were spread across 19 fund houses, with 2 fund houses having 3 or more women fund managers, 6 fund houses had 2 women fund managers while 11 fund houses had at least 1 woman fund manager.

When it comes to tenure, 10 fund managers have managed funds consistently for over five years, 12 fund managers have been managing funds between two and five years, and 8 fund managers have a relatively lower experience of managing or co-managing funds below two years.

Women fund managers handled assets worth Rs 4.11 lakh crore, which is 13.5 per cent of the total mutual fund assets.

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The mutual fund industry's assets during the last year have surged to Rs 30.50 lakh crore as on January 2021, up from Rs 27.85 lakh crore a year earlier despite facing a sharp market corrections, a full-blown pandemic and strict lockdowns.

"Over the last few years, while the assets managed by women are on the rise, in percentage terms of the overall industry assets, this number has not been something to boast about," the report noted.

There is certainly a rise in the number of women fund managers in the mutual fund industry. When Morningstar first came out with a report on women fund managers in 2017, there were only 18 women fund managers. This increased to 24 in 2018, 29 in 2019, was 28 in 2020, and again increased to 30 in 2021.

"With a meagre 8 per cent representation, women still remain drastically under-represented among the ranks of mutual fund managers," the report added.

Of the total open-ended assets managed by women fund managers, 80 per cent of the assets under management (AUM) outperformed the peer group average on a one-year basis and 80 per cent of the AUM outperformed on a three-year basis and 74 per cent of the AUM outperformed on a five-year basis, the report noted.

Major chunk of the overall assets managed by women fund managers were in fixed income category (Rs 1.77 lakh crore or 43 per cent), followed by money market funds, liquid funds and overnight funds (Rs 1.09 lakh crore or 26.6 per cent) and equity funds (Rs 1.03 lakh crore or 25.1 per cent).