Julius Baer, the largest foreign wealth manager in India, plans to launch an offshore India equity focused fund, Rahul Malhotra, Managing Director, Head Private Banking Global India & Developed Markets, has said.

This fund, to be domiciled in Ireland, would be launched in September and this would be Julius Baer’s first ever proprietary India equity fund to be available on the offshore platform, Malhotra told businessline here. 

“We have roadshows happening in September between Switzerland, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Singapore. Pre-work has already happened,” he said.

The plan to launch an India-focused equity fund out of its offshore platform was part of an overall business strategy chalked out two years back. “We embarked on this strategy two years back. It’s a part of our five year plan, which is our business transformation strategy approved by our Board in December 2021,” Malhotra said. 

Currently, Julius Baer’s assets under management in India stands at $21 billion. 

“Smart money is going into India — be it foreign or domestic investors. There is keen interest from our offshore clients (retail) in wanting to invest in India. Our offshore platform has lot of China, South-East Asia, Japan, and the UK. But the India piece was missing and that is why we have decided to put together this India-focused equity fund in our offshore platform.

If foreign investors (retail) want exposure to Indian equities, they should be investing in equity markets in India and that is what the proposed fund would do”, Malhotra said. 

Renewed interest

This proposed offshore India equity fund would be available to both non-resident Indians (NRIs) and non-Indians in Europe, Middle East, and Asia to take exposure in Indian equities through an open ended fund in an offshore platform. 

It comes at a time when there is renewed interest among foreign investors on Indian equities, which has returned 10 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the June quarter. The June 2023 quarter also saw Indian equities adding market capitalisation of over $400 billion, catapulting India to among the top five global markets by market capitalisation.

“We are now putting our Julius Baer India equity fund on the offshore platform. So that all our offshore clients (not only NRIs) can invest in India through that vehicle. There will be a separate fund, separate structure and separate fund managers offshore,” Malhotra said.

Malhotra said Julius Baer till date had third party India-focused equity fund on its offshore platform, but for the first time ever is looking to have a proprietary fund on the offshore platform.

“This is the first India focused proprietary offshore equity fund for us. You will see five …ten and more such funds down the road”, he said. Malhotra noted that the private bank that really plays to a global India strategy would be ahead of the others. Domestic wealth managers in India can’t play the offshore game, he added.

INDIA AMBITION

Malhotra said that Julius Baer aims to be the most dominant wealth manager on the ground in India by 2026.

Julius Baer is already among the top five in India in wealth management space including the local competitors.

Malhotra also said that Julius Baer, which is currently present in seven cities in India, will expand significantly beyond ten cities in the next three years. The seven cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune.

Julius Baer also plans to increase its overall headcount by 25 per cent from the current tally of 300 people, he added.

Malhotra also made it clear that Julius Baer, which is serving the high networth and ultra high networth space, has no plans to get into the mass affluent space. 

“We will certainly look at mass affluent space. But not today. Our initial strategy is basically let’s execute the five year transformational journey that we have set for ourselves. We are in year two of that journey,” he said.

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