Fundmen trading places

It is rush hour on Fund Street, with at least six top fund managers set to swap jobs. The mutual fund industry, which is used to churning, has not quite seen anything like this for a long time.

Sandip Sabharwal, head of equities, SBI Mutual Fund, is joining an asset management company jointly promoted by Temasek and Sabre Capital. Replacing Sabharwal at SBI will be Sanjay Sinha, fund manager, UTI Mutual Fund.

Krishnamurthy Vijayan, chief executive officer of JM Mutual Fund, is quitting to join UK-based asset manager Dawnay Day, though no replacement has been found for him yet.

There is more. Sundaram Mutual Fund Manager Anoop Bhaskar is said to be in negotiations with a Bangalore-based hedge fund. AK Sridhar, chief investment officer, UTI Mutual Fund, is in talks to take up a top job at Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund.

CIO of HSBC Asset Management Sanjiv Duggal has moved to Singapore to assume a large role with the fund house.

Recently, Badrish Kulhalli, debt fund manager of the erstwhile Alliance Capital, and Sajjan Desai, equity fund manager with Prudential ICICI Mutual Fund, quit to join Optimix, an asset management company awaiting Sebi approval to start operations.

Besides, Vikrant Gugnani joined Reliance Mutual Fund as its chief executive officer, as the earlier CEO, Amitabh Chaturvedi, was elevated to the post of group director, financial services. Gugnani raised a lot of eyebrows as he quit Fidelity Asset Management within days of joining the company as head of business development.

Sabharwal, Vijayan and Sridhar were not willing to comment on the issue when contacted. Sinha and Bhaskar could not be contacted.

The mutual fund industry has been seeing a lot of movement of late. At a time when assets are swelling for mutual funds, the industry seems to be facing a dearth of managers.