Indian MF industry's AUM may reach Rs 90 trillion by 2030, says Jefferies' Chris Wood

Total assets under management of India's mutual fund industry could cross Rs 90 trillion by the end of this decade, said Christopher Wood, head of global equity strategy at US-based investment bank Jefferies. As per January data, the total AUM of the industry stood at Rs 34.10 trillion.

In the latest Greed & Fear note of Jefferies, Wood says the potential for growth is also illustrated by the fact that mutual fund assets under management are only 16 percent of GDP, which is way below most countries.

In this respect, HDFC Asset Management is an interesting investment play, the Greed & Fear report said, adding that it does not, for now, have any of the Indian listed fund houses in the Indian long-only portfolio.

Many countries saw a surge in retail investors due to the pandemic. The recent AMFI data showed that of the 26.51 lakh fresh accounts added, the number of SIP accounts crossed 5 crore, for the first time in history.

The story here is clearly the growing number of consumer-facing services and products going online. There has certainly been a dramatic surge in retail investor accounts. They have doubled from 35 million at the end of March 2019 to 77 million in November 2021, Greed & Fear report adds.

Jefferies’ India office, based on analysis of BSE500 companies' shareholding data, estimated that domestic retail holdings (including mutual funds and retail investors) in the stock market rose to a multi-year high of 17.3 percent at the end of 2021, up from 11.4 percent at the end of 2014.