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After managing HDFC Flexi Cap for more than two decades, fund manager and CIO Prashant Jain exited the fund house in July 2022. On a positive note, the fund house appointed Roshi Jain to manage this fund. Her experience, similarities with her predecessor’s investment style and execution capabilities leads us to assign a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Bronze to all share classes. Under Prashant Jain, the fund’s direct share class was rated Silver and regular share class Bronze. Prashant Jain helmed this fund from June 2003 until his exit and had built a commendable track record. He was one of the most experienced and prominent fund managers in the Indian mutual fund industry, having of almost 30 years of fund management experience. His exit is a big loss for the fund house.Roshi Jain is also a very experienced research analyst and portfolio manager. Over the years, she has emerged as one of the most prominent portfolio managers in the industry. Prior to joining HDFC Mutual Fund, she worked with Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. She joined Franklin in May 2005 as research analysts and went on to manage some of their key strategies. The funds managed by her had a noteworthy track record. She is an apt fit for the role here. Roshi Jain’s investment style is similar to Prashant Jain’s in multiple respects, which would ensure continuity in the strategy, thought process, and portfolio construction. The fund will continue to be managed with a growth at reasonable price approach. Like her predecessor, Roshi Jain is also benchmark-aware and prefers selecting stocks based on top-down and bottom-up approach with the later being more prominent. Moreover, high conviction concentrated exposures will continue to be a part of the investment strategy. She is patient with her investments and adopts a long-term approach. Unlike Prashant Jain, she will try to avoid deep-value opportunities and adopt a more moderate approach with respect to exposure to a specific theme. Her aim is to make the outcome from the strategy relatively more stable. She has managed funds with similar approaches in the past, and the execution has been noteworthy. We had high conviction on Prashant Jain, driven by his unmatched experience, time-tested and consistent investment approach, and superior execution capabilities. Roshi Jain is also an experienced manager and has the expertise to deliver outperformance over the long term. However, we would like to see more of her at HDFC and better stability within the team before building further conviction.
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