Starting off my new assignment with Prabhudas Lilladher Group today

The press release

Prabhudas Lilladher Group appoints Sandip Sabharwal as CEO – Portfolio Management Services

Mumbai, May 5, 2009: Prabhudas Lilladher has appointed Sandip Sabharwal as CEO – Portfolio Management Services (PMS). PL Group is one of India’s leading financial services organizations, providing a comprehensive range of financial services to institutions, HNIs, retail as well as corporate clients. With a strong foundation, built over the last 6 decades, PL offers a host of services including Broking, Corporate Advisory, Investment Banking, Wealth Management, Insurance Advisory and Margin Funding.

At Prabhudas Lilladher, Sandip will be responsible for spearheading and managing the Portfolio Management Business. He will manage funds and investment mandates – strengthening PL’s Portfolio Management business and introduce new PMS products. The rich experience of over 14 years in fund management; that he brings to the table is expected to enhance PL’s core strengths and add tremendous value to the investment management style.

Sandip began his career in 1995 as a Research Analyst at SBI Mutual Funds and rose through the ranks to become the Head of Equity in 2004. He has been instrumental in turning around the prospects of its equity funds through his aggressive investment strategy. During the period from January 2004 to end of 2005, the total AUM of SBI MF went up by 10 times from Rs. 600 Crores to Rs. 5800 Crores mainly driven by the performances of the scheme which were better than all peer group schemes in the market. Sandip was also Awarded Business Standard Fund Manager of the year for 2004-05 by the Finance minister of India – Mr. P Chidambaram. He left the firm to join Lotus AMC, now Religare Aegon AMC as the fund’s Chief Investment Officer. Subsequently He joined JM Financial AMC as the Chief Investment Officer (Equity). In his very first year, the AUM of the fund house grew from Rs. 200 crores to Rs. 5400 crores. During his tenure, three JM equity schemes were among the Top 10 Indian Funds and within Top 51 of the World performing equity funds and 2 JM equity schemes figured in the top 10 diversified equity schemes in India in 2007

An IIT (Delhi) and IIM (Bangalore) alumni, his other interests are sports, astrology, travelling, among others.

Mr. Dilip Bhat, Joint Managing Director of PL Group said: “We are happy to bring someone of Sandip’s caliber onboard and are confident that he will provide the right balance of dynamism and professionalism in orchestrating the development of the Fund Management business of the group.”

Mr. Sandip Sabharwal on joining PL said, “After having spent nearly 14 years doing Fund Management in the Mutual Fund industry it was time for me to move on towards doing something more challenging and exciting. By coming together with PL, which has a strong brand name and reputation of honesty and integrity, my aim will be to build a strong franchise on Portfolio Management for both onshore and offshore clients. The Portfolio Management Space in India is at its nascent phase with tremendous scope for rapid growth. The potential size of this market is in multiple of billions of dollars, moreover India has one of the youngest populations globally and the most rapidly growing High Networth Population, thus offering a huge potential marketplace. PMS being run by relatively better known Fund Managers are largely elitist with very high entry barriers. Our aim will be to offer it to a more widely spread out universe and keep the entry barrier lower, without it impacting service standards to customers. Focussed alpha generating strategies as well as absolute return generating strategies offer significant growth opportunities. Besides this, there is a large amount of liquidity globally which needs proper advise for investing into high growth economies like India and that is precisely what we will be focusing on. Starting off on a long term partnership, we will target a size of a billion dollars of funds under management in the next few years.”