New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) WhiteOak Capital Asset Management, a new entrant to the mutual fund space, is looking to open nearly 100 branches across the country in the next 12-18 months.

Also, the company has lined up six different mutual fund products with the first being a flexi-cap fund, followed by an emerging markets fund, a large-cap fund, a mid-cap fund, and an equity-linked saving scheme (ELSS), Prateek Pant, Chief Business Officer at WhiteOak Capital Asset Management, told PTI in an interaction.

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The company has already filed offer documents with Sebi for the six mutual fund schemes and will launch them as soon as it gets approval from the regulator.

Talking about its strategy for the new funds, Pant said, WhiteOak will focus majorly on active funds as the company believes that there is a lot of scope in such funds. Moreover, it will use the expertise of its 30-member strong investment team.

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The regulatory thrust on segregating the cost of fund management and cost of advice/distribution and push to advisory practice, institutional preference, government move to disinvest via exchange-traded funds (ETFs), huge base of new entrants that are digital first, need for simplification of investing among others are few reasons for focus on active funds, he added.

The asset management company believes in multi-modal presence and it will build its own digital interface and have a huge digital presence through various fintech companies and stockbroking firms to ensure that the product and differentiated content reaches investors.

WhiteOak, which has already empanelled distributors, "plans to open nearly 100 branches across 80 cities in the next 12-18 months," Pant said.

At present, the asset management company has 40 branches in 30 cities including Jaipur, Varanasi, Dehradun and Amritsar.

White Oak Capital group, which provides investment management and advisory services for equity assets of over Rs 42,000 crore, recently entered the mutual fund space by acquiring Yes MF.

The group is founded by Prashant Khemka, formerly CIO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management's India Equity and Global Emerging Markets Equity businesses.

The company is confident of attracting large customers given its track record in portfolio management services (PMS) and alternative investment fund (AIF) divisions.

Currently, the total AIF business stands at Rs 5,000 crore, the PMS is about Rs 7,000 crore and it has 7,000-8,000 PMS investors.

Last fiscal, the company had the largest inflows on the PMS side at over Rs 5,000 crore. The three-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of its PMS business stood at 26-27 per cent.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)