Schroders shutting shop in India?

Is Schroders Investment Management, a UK-based company with over a £100 billion in assets under management, looking to exit India?

Talk is that a wind-up of Indian operations is being seriously considered even as other alternatives are weighed, sources familiar with the development said.

They said compliance and sales officials hired by Schroders when it started out in 2007 have put in their papers, and the organisation’s domestic operations are at a crossroads.

DNA spoke to two people familiar with the matter.

Repeated attempts by DNA over the past one month to get response from Schroders’ India office and its headquarters in London failed.

Schroders is a global asset management company based out of the UK with £138.9 billion (over Rs 10 lakh crore) of assets under management as of
September 30, 2009.

It had appointed S V Prasad, the former CEO of Birla Sun Life Asset Management as its managing director for India in 2007.

A few key personnel were also hired at the time, who have since decided to part ways, sources said.

When DNA called Prasad in mid-December, he asked not to be contacted since he was abroad.

On Thursday, another try was met with a curt “Don’t disturb me.”

In between, messages left on his cellphone and sent via email remained unanswered.

Schroders’ head office in London has been equally uncommunicative.
Repeated voice messages and emails over the last one month have remained unanswered.

Schroders has both institutional and retail clients and invests in a broad range of asset classes across equities, fixed income and alternatives.
The 206-year-old company has a presence in 25 different countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India, which regulates mutual funds in India, had received an application for setting up a mutual fund business from Schroder Investment Management (Singapore) on April 4, 2008.

The status on the application, as of November 2009 reads, ‘Applicant to revert with further information,’ according to the Sebi website.