Edelweiss | Radhika Gupta: All rumours about me leaving and Edelweiss MF being on the block baseless: Radhika Gupta

I have been with the business for five years and the group for much longer. We have had a terrific growth trajectory. We grew from Rs 50,000 crore to Rs 80,000 crore in the last financial year. We were the fastest growing among our peer set and among mid and large AMCs. For us, the excitement is just starting in the mutual fund business. The number of customers doubled last year and we are far away from thinking of selling the mutual fund business to any players.

I completely and absolutely refute any such rumours and reports. On the contrary, I think we have built a very high quality franchise. We have just started to show meaningful profitability last year because of the growth in the equity book and we could even be looking at a listing of this business in two, three years because we really believe we have built a quality franchise.

Under your leadership, the fund has done pretty well especially a lot of innovative stuff around overseas products or even the smallcap, midcap end of the market has been captured very well. What kind of data are you reading right now which may tell us whether the valuations have become attractive or not?
We put out a note. This year perhaps may be a tale of two halves in terms of market and it is playing out interestingly. I think the first half has been extremely choppy and volatile and that will go into June quarter earnings but now we are getting more clarity about the trajectory of rates both in India and overseas, and we are seeing some cool off from a crude point of view.

While the June quarter earnings could be disappointing, markets have totally factored that in and perhaps the second half of the year will be better. In fact, we choose this time rather unconventionally to actually go out into the market and launch an NFO.
NFO season was last year in a big way for the NF industry, we did not do an equity NFO because of where we felt valuations were then but with prices moderating and the kind of corrections we are seeing, we are opening a focussed fund for NFO. It is a reflection of our confidence in markets and perhaps the opportunity that lies ahead for investors.

Is this a good time to really look for some kind of a topping up? Your international funds said that there is a nod also coming from the regulator side that one can do it. There is opportunity because overseas equities are also down very sharply. Any thoughts there?
Yes, absolutely. A few days ago, the regulator had allowed investments in international funds to a certain limit with certain restrictions. We at Edelweiss opened our international funds including our China and US tech funds and there has been a lot of demand and I think it is a good time to look at both markets.

Tech perhaps is very interesting because the correction in tech stocks is even higher than it was in the Covid period. China went through a lot of turmoil as a market. So, for an international investor who has a long-term horizon as the international investor, this is a great time to talk of those investments. But one has to understand what one is getting into with international markets.