Women fund managers at meagre 8% of industry count: Morningstar report

New Delhi, Mar 6 () India has witnessed a slight drop in female representation in the fund managers space with women fund managers accounting for a meagre 8 per cent of the total number of managers in the country's asset management industry, a study by Morningstar showed.

Of the 352 fund managers, the number of women fund managers stood at 28 or 8 per cent. The number of such female fund managers was 29 last year.

Women fund managers handled about Rs 3.59 lakh crore of assets which is approximately 13 per cent of the Indian mutual fund industry, the report noted.

Although, the total assets managed has gone up from Rs 3.41 lakh crore seen last year, in percentage terms this number has fallen from 15 per cent last year to 13 per cent of the overall industry assets base of Rs 27.85 lakh crore as of January 2020.

"With a meagre 8 per cent representation, women still remain drastically under-represented among the ranks of mutual fund managers," the report added.

Of the total open-ended investor assets managed by women fund managers, 78 per cent of assets under management (AUM) have outperformed the peer group average over 1-year period. Over three-year, it is 72 per cent and 90 per cent over a five-year basis.

Major chunk of the overall assets managed by women fund managers are in debt funds (Rs 1.45 lakh crore or 40.5 per cent), followed by money market funds (34.5 per cent) and equity funds (Rs 79,000 crore or 22 per cent).

At present, there are 44 mutual fund houses, which manages assets to the tune of Rs 27.85 lakh crore. SP SHWSHW