These Mutual Fund Managers Outperformed The Rest In Samvat 2080

A list of the top performing mutual fund schemes of any given year will usually contain thematic funds or a category of schemes that has outperformed in the recent past. For example, defence-focused, infrastructure, and manufacturing would make the cut. But are their fund managers the best in the business?

A better way to judge a fund manager's performance, however, is to look at the degree of outperformance they achieved over the benchmark. This is further exemplified by measuring this across various fund categories and allocation guidelines.

During the Samvat 2080, across actively managed equity mutual fund schemes, there are 115 fund managers that managed more than one scheme as the primary fund manager, according to data by ACE MF.

Of these, only 32 had all of their schemes managed by them outperform their respective benchmarks. A significant outperformance of 10% was achieved by only 11 of these, while two achieved a stellar 20% beat.

The two top performing fund managers based on the average outperformance, and who manage at least two funds were Ajay Khandelwal, and Niket Shah, who are both from Motilal Oswal Asset Management Co.

The Best Of The Best

Ajay Khandelwal joined the AMC in November 2023, and started managing the Motilal Oswal Large and Midcap Fund and Motilal Oswal ELSS Tax Saver Fund starting December 2023, along with Niket Shah as the co-fund manager. The two schemes have delivered an outperformance of 20.8% and 28.7% over their respective benchmarks since November 2023.

Niket Shah has been the primary fund manager for Motilal Oswal Midcap Fund since July 2020 and Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund since July 2022. Since November 2023, the two schemes have outperformed by 27% and 22%, respectively. Earlier this year in April, Shah had also been appointed as the chief investment officer for the asset management company.

With net asset value growing by 70%, the Motilal Oswal Midcap Fund has delivered the highest absolute returns across any scheme managed by the top performing fund managers.

In the list of top outperforming fund managers, the most number of schemes managed is tied at four for Taher Badshah, president and chief investment officer at Invesco Mutual Fund, and Satish Ramanathan, managing director and chief investment officer, equities, at JM Financial Asset Management Ltd.

Taher Badshah manages the Invesco India Focused Fund, Invesco India Contra Fund, Invesco India Smallcap Fund, and Invesco India ESG Integration Strategy Fund.

Invesco India Focused Fund recorded the largest outperformance among the four, beating its benchmark—the BSE 500 Total Returns Index by over 30%. It is by far the best performing scheme in its category, delivering returns of 35% over a one-year period, followed by ICICI Prudential Focused Equity Fund, which returned 47%. The scheme has delivered the largest degree of outperformance across any, among the subset of actively managed equity mutual fund schemes.

Alok Singh, CIO at Bank of India Investment Managers, and Krishna Sanghavi, CIO of Equities at Mahindra Manulife Investment Management, also made the list of the top five outperforming fund managers of Samvat 2080.

Singh delivered an average outperformance of 12.2% across the two schemes managed by him, the Bank of India Flexi Cap Fund and the Bank of India ELSS Tax Saver Fund.

Sanghavi delivered an 11.8% outperformance across the Mahindra Manulife Business Cycle Fund and Mahindra Manulife Focused Fund. The two schemes grew investor wealth by over 50% and 40% respectively over the period.

Satish Ramanathan manages JM Flexicap Fund, JM Value Fund, JM Midcap Fund, JM Large Cap Fund, with the largest outperformance being delivered by JM Flexicap Fund. It ranks second in its category based on one-year returns, after the Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund.