Targeting 10% market share in Goa: Dastoor

HERALD: Franklin Templeton is the largest foreign fund house in India. What are your aspirations?

PESHOTAN DASTOOR: We have a solid business in India with a great management, strong products, good year-on-year performance and a reputable brand. Our priority remains to build a sustainable, business that continually adds value to our investing customers and business partners. Besides improving our market share and mind share, we aim to stay relevant to the needs of our investors and provide few but value-added and diversified products / solutions. We also wish to make a mark in service standards that we offer our investors and distributors by making technology the backbone. On the investment front, we aim to continue bringing global investment expertise with a local perspective through a well-experienced and stable portfolio management and research team.

HERALD: What advice would you like to give to the retail investors who wish to invest in mutual funds?

PD: Mutual funds offer both variety and convenience besides various other advantages. Key advantages are diversification across asset classes, professional investment expertise, economies of scale, tax efficiencies and lower ticket size (minimum investment of Rs 500 per month) among others. Even though mutual funds do not offer assured returns, they have the potential to comfortably beat inflation over the long run. It is therefore important for retail investors to allocate some part of the savings towards mutual funds to benefit from the above. Interest rates offered by traditional products are on a decline owing to which there is a need to look at mutual funds for their potential to generate higher inflation adjusted returns.

HERALD: What should investors keep in mind while selecting a mutual fund?

PD: Most investors only look at past performance which could be misleading as past performance may not guarantee future returns. One needs to also look at qualitative factors like parentage, track record and experience of the fund house and its investment team besides the investment process and grievance redressal track record, among others. 

HERALD: Why a branch in Goa when the economy here is not so upbeat post the mining ban?

PD: At Franklin Templeton, our decisions are always long term focused while the current State policies may only have a short to medium term impact on Goa’s economy. Further people in Goa will continue to save and our aim is to provide them with an option to invest in mutual funds belonging to a fund house over 20-years old. With declining interest rates from traditional investments, mutual funds have been able to build traction as they aim to meet the rising cost of future life goals like children’s education and retirement (which may be difficult to meet with assured returns products alone).

HERALD: How is Goa’s mutual fund market? 

PD: The current AUM in Goa is about Rs 10,000 crore but has a scope for exponential growth primarily because a very small proportion of savers invest in mutual funds. Our industry today is spending over Rs 300 crore or 2 basis points (0.02%) of its assets every year on investor education to promote regular savings via mutual funds especially through SIPs or Systematic Investment Plans. We are already seeing good results with the industry adding 25 lakh SIP accounts in just the past one year vis-à-vis 75 lakh SIP accounts added over the past 25 years. This trend is likely to continue across the country including Goa. 

HERALD: How will you compete with other fund houses?

PD: The performance track record of our funds speaks for itself. We have four funds which are more than 20 years old and 20 funds which are more than 10 years old. Further, at a global level, our firm would turn 70 next year. We are also proud to be associated with legendary names like Sir John Templeton and Mark Mobius who are respected in the investment world as ‘gurus’. Having said that, we are still the 7th largest asset manager and also the largest 100% foreign owned fund house in the country, despite competition.

HERALD: Who in Goa are your target customers? What is your target in the next five years?

PD: Any saver would be our customer as mutual funds offer a variety of products to suit various goals, investment horizons and risk appetite. Mutual funds also come with a lot of convenience from lower ticket size to ease of investing. Our immediate aspiration is to atleast have 10 per cent of the mutual fund market share in Goa. So from Rs 300 crore, we plan to go to Rs 1,000 crore. Without a branch, we were able to have 3 per cent of the market share and now with a branch, we aim to grow this to 10 per cent.