Ajit Dayal has shown that a mutual fund can survive and grow without the blessings of the all-powerful distributors
AJIT DAYAL
Mission: Run a process-driven, investor-friendly mutual fund that abhors any distribution model that milks investors
Age: 50
Career: Started with a US trading firm. Set up India’s first equity research firm. JV with Jardine Fleming, Walden, Hansberger. Founded Quantum MF.
Belief: “The closer you get to money, the more it stinks.”
But its funds weren’t really overnight successes. Being a value investment house, Quantum isn’t likely to set investors’ hearts on fire in a rising market. Its funds do better than the broader market typically in bad times. So, in the boom time before 2008, getting investors was tough business.
(This story appears in the 11 March, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)