Kailash Kulkarni, Chief Executive Officer at L&T Mutual Fund, has put in his papers, three people aware of the development told Moneycontrol.
The sources said that Soumendra Nath Lahiri, who is currently Chief Investment Officer at the fund house, will take over as CEO after Kulkarni leaves.
If the buzz in the market is to be believed, Kulkarni was given the responsibility of finding a buyer for L&T Mutual Fund but was unable to do so in the last 2 years.
This may have prompted the company to ask him to resign. Moneycontrol also learned that he was denied the company's ESOPs.
Messages and calls to Kulkarni went unanswered. In a response to queries on the matter, a L&T Mutual Fund spokesperson said, "As a matter of policy we do not comment on speculation."
A lot has changed for the fund house, the country's twelfth largest, from the time its parent had decided to sell a minority stake in early 2016.
Its AUM has risen by a whopping 132 percent to nearly Rs 66,000 crore, at the end of March, from roughly Rs 28,400 crore at the end of June, 2016.
But the company has been unsuccessful in finding an appropriate buyer.
In 2012, L&T Mutual Fund announced its acquisition of Fidelity Mutual Fund, which was almost double its size back then, for about Rs 550 crore.
Kulkarni, who has been with the fund house since March 2012, was well connected to distributors.
According to the market grapevine, the fund house had paid higher fees to distributors to garner more assets. It had also cut costs, mainly by reducing employee strength.
Kulkarni, 49, has more than 20 years of work experience. Before his stint with L&T Mutual Fund, he was Head of Sales & Distribution, Kotak Mahindra AMC, from December 2006 to February 2012.
He has also worked with MetLife India Insurance Company, ICICI Bank, JM Financial, and Eicher Motors.
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