White Oak Capital group gets SEBI approval to start mutual fund business

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White Oak Capital group, which had acquired YES Mutual Fund through its subsidiary GPL Finance in August 2020, has now got the go-ahead from SEBI to run the mutual fund (MF) business.

YES Bank, which was earlier the sponsor for YES MF, had exited the MF business as part of its plans to get out of non-core business.

In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Aashish Somaiyaa, who will be heading the fund house, had said that the MF’s focus will initially be on actively-managed funds.

“Also, White Oak’s investment team has several professionals, with considerable experience managing international equity assets. So over time, we may also want to take advantage of this expertise in the team and look at some emerging market products,” Somaiyaa had said.

Prashant Khemka, the founder of White Oak Capital Management, was chief investment officer and lead portfolio manager of GS India equity and global emerging markets, at Goldman Sachs AMC.

Speaking on the development, Khemka said, “We have instituted a performance-first culture at our firm, earning the confidence of investors globally who have entrusted us with assets of over Rs 40,000 crores in the past four years. We are excited about offering our investment expertise to retail investors across the country.”

Soon MF investors can have lot more MF schemes and fund houses to choose from, as several financial companies and PMS firms are getting ready to set their own MF businesses.

Earlier in the week, Samco MF announced its launch and the investment strategy it is going to follow. The country’s largest MF distributor NJ India, which also recently started its business, on September 13, 2021, announced the filing of its first MF scheme.

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal backed-Navi MF has filed for ten new funds with SEBI, after its launch of a Nifty Index Fund with the lowest expense ratio.