Reliance Capital to Acquire Goldman Sachs India MF Business for 243 Cr

Goldman Sachs had entered the Indian mutual fund industry in 2011 with acquisition of Benchmark Mutual Fund for 120 crore. In last few years, a number of global players have exited the Indian mutual fund business.

Standard Chartered sold its mutual fund business in India to IDFC in 2008; Fidelity sold its mutual fund to L&T Finance in 2012, while last year HDFC MF acquired Morgan Stanley's fund business here.

Besides, Birla Sunlife has acquired ING Mutual Fund, Kotak MF has bought PineBridge Mutual Fund and Pramerica has taken over Deutsche Bank's mutual fund business in India.

Still, there are more than 40 fund houses in the country with total AUM of over 133 lakh crore, which has been growing for eight consecutive quarters now. In terms of mutual fund AUM, HDFC MF is the largest (1.71 lakh crore), followed by ICICI Prudential (1.65 lakh crore) and Reliance MF (1.53 lakh crore) at the second and third places respectively.

HDFC MF was also in the race to acquire Goldman Sachs' India mutual fund assets, but lost out and the deal will help Reliance MF close the gap on its two bigger rivals.

Globally, Goldman Sachs Asset Management is one of the biggest fund managers with AUM of over $1.19 trillion across countries and asset classes.

"Reliance Capital Asset Management will pay a total sum of 243 crore ($37.5 million) in cash to acquire all onshore mutual fund schemes, including exchange traded funds, of GSAM India."

"The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this fiscal year, subject to necessary regulatory approvals," the two firms said in a joint statement.

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