T. Rowe Price says to increase stake in UTI AMC beyond 26%

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Q: Is that what has attracted you to come at this point of time because when I speak to several other mutual funds and CEO's their view is that the market has saturated, business is not doing well, and other regulatory changes. But the sense I always get is the fact that you are saying that at the end of the day the penetration level is so low that there is only an upside?

A: That is sort of the way we look at it. Certainly we think there is an enormous upside. We also tend to think in very long term that. So this will work out in the long term and be a very substantial opportunity.

As far as why we are here now, frankly it has little to do with the current state of the markets or the deficits in India or anything else. But it also has very much to do with the fact that a year and a half or two years ago we met UTI.

Q: So no one else met you in all this while?

A: We have had conversations with others. But the fit, it is so hard - the alignment around goals, values and culture is so critically important to any kind of collaborative effort between two companies, and it is so hard to find that when you find you have to take that opportunity very seriously.

So quite frankly, the reason we are sitting here today is simply because we entered into that conversation with UTI and it happened to end where we are closing in today and it has really less to do with what is going on in the world around us right now.

Q: If you and I are sitting a year down the line where we are sitting today, would you be a 51% holder in UTI or you would stick with 26%?

A: Very hard to predict, we are delighted to have done what we have done today. There are others obviously who will have a point of view on that. I would say that it is fair to say and we have publicly stated that it would be our interest to increase our stake over time.

I wouldn't even begin to know how to predict right now, over what timeframe and how that would take shape.