Ambit Holdings rejigs mutual fund joint venture with Nikko

Diversified financial services company Ambit Holdings is restructuring its partnership with Nikko Asset Management in their proposed mutual fund business.

Ambit will now hold around 50% stake in the joint venture as opposed to the original 24% announced in 2006, according to Ashok Wadhwa, the firm’s group chief executive officer.
The partners attributed the change in favour of a more equal stake to their ‘strong working relationship.’

The business will be launched depending on market conditions and regulatory approval, said a company official.

The Sebi website shows that Nikko Asset Management had applied for a mutual fund licence on July 30, 2007. It says the regulator is awaiting further information from Nikko.

Ambit also announced the launch of two joint ventures with Nikko Asset Management — an offshore fund and an investment advisory business — on Monday.

Nikko will pick up 50.1% of Ambit Mauritius Investment Managers, a registered foreign institutional investor (FII), which runs the Ambit Frontier Fund and Ambit QInvest India Fund. Both these funds manage money from global investors looking to invest in Indian equities.

The FII has assets under management of $150 million (`793.95 crore), which it hopes to grow to $1.5 billion (`7,939.5 crore) over the next 3-5 years, according to Andrew Holland, the chief executive officer of Ambit Investment Advisory.

Nikko will also pick up 49% of Ambit Investment Advisors, a firm which provides advisory services to Ambit’s portfolio management services (PMS), its offshore funds as well as its proprietary trading division in which it trades in the market with its own capital.

Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.

Tokyo-headquartered Nikko Asset Management has total assets under management of over $157 billion (Rs 8.31 lakh crore).

Ambit also has a joint venture with UK investment bank and institutional stockbroker Panmure Gordon & Co in which Qatar-based financial services company QInvest is a majority shareholder. QInvest also has a 25% stake in Ambit Holdings, the group company under which all other businesses run as subsidiaries.

Ambit is also strategically allied to Societe Generale to work together on cross border transactions involving India and Europe.