Axis Mutual Fund has invested close to $400 million outside India, chief executive officer of the firm Chandresh Kumar Nigam said at a media interaction on Thursday. He said the asset management company (AMC) is in discussions with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) over raising the limit for international investment. In November 2020, Sebi had doubled the foreign investment limit for AMCs from $300 million to $600 million, even while retaining the $7 billion foreign investment limit set for the industry as a whole. However, within just 5 months of the doubling, some AMCs have already come close to reaching the enhanced investment limit.
Nigam was speaking at the launch of Axis Global Innovation Fund of Funds, a scheme feeding into Schroder International Selection Fund Global Disruption. Axis Asset Management has a tie up with Schroders, a global asset manager with £574.4 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of 31 March 2021 for its international offerings. Schroders also has a 25% stake in Axis Asset Management. Axis Mutual Fund aims to raise the equivalent of $200 million (around Rs1,500 crore) in the initial offer of the new fund which would bring the fund house close to the Sebi limit, Nigam added.
The rapid growth of assets in international funds has come in the past 1-2 years as Axis AMC along with the mutual fund industry as a whole has turned to international stocks, particularly those of US tech companies. The AUM of Fund of Funds investing overseas have soared from Rs1,951 crores in April 2019 to Rs12,408 crore in March 2021. The number of such schemes also rose from 29 to 35 in this period. The AUM does not include schemes such as Parag Parikh Flexicap Fund. which invest only a part of their corpus outside India.
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