We hear that a new-age mutual fund house has lured distributors with expensive gifts. Distributors who got around Rs 4 crore worth of inflows stood a chance to win two tickets (for a couple) to Paris. Inflows worth Rs 3 crore came with a reward of 2 tickets to Ukraine though with the threat of a Russian invasion imminent, we wonder if this was a reward or punishment. Nevertheless, inflows between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 2 crore came with rewards ranging from Samsung mobile phones, Apple iPad minis to the iPhone 13. This is the interesting chatter we picked up folks. Such lavish contests were until recently a thing of the past in the Rs 37 trillion Indian mutual funds industry. In 2018, inundated with numerous complaints from both within the mutual funds industry on account of unhealthy competition and asset gathering and investors who complained of mis-selling by distributors, the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, had ruled that mutual funds must pay all commissions through trail commission. Trail commission is a method of distributing commission throughout the time the investor remains with the fund. Upfront commission, on the other hand, means that the fund pays distributor at the time the investor invests. The entire account of fund expenses is also disclosed in an investor’s common account statement. Hence, the alleged gifting policy of this particular MF player remains a mystery!

More buzz on what picked up from mutual funds. A raft of changes are taking place at this mutual fund company that has witnessed back to back exits recently. A head of trading has quit and so has a fund manager. Now the hunt is on for a PMS head, we hear. The past few months have seen a lot of churn of key executives, especially in the advisory world. Law firms, investment banks, Big-4 firms … the war for tapping the best of talent is definitely on!