Prashant Jain

Prashant Jain was Chief Investment Officer at HDFC Mutual Fund, a leading Mutual Fund of India from 2004 to 2022. During this tenure, HDFC Mutual Fund’s assets grew from approximately Rs.3000 cr^ to approximately Rs. 4,40,000 cr. Of this approximately Rs.2,35,000 cr was in equity / equity oriented funds.

He has 31 years of investment management experience.

Prashant holds the distinction of being the only fund manager in India & one of the few globally, to have continuously managed a scheme for over 28 years. This fund, namely, HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund (earlier known as HDFC Prudence fund), a hybrid equity debt fund, delivered a CAGR of ~17.9% between Jan 1994 to July 2022 vs Sensex CAGR of ~9.6% in this period.

Apart from being the most awarded fund manager in India, he also has the distinction of being the only fund manager in India to have managed 1 lac crores of equity funds.

Some refer to him as a contrarian investor, some a value investor, but he considers himself to be a rational investor. He has probably called every cycle / excess right in his three-decade career – often early, but eventually right. His key winning themes over this period were technology in 90’s, old economy from early 2000 to pre Lehman, consumer from pre Lehman to mid-2010’s and corporate banks, energy, defense, utilities etc in the last phase. On the other hand, he also successfully called the tech bubble and avoided the excesses of pre lehman in infra, power etc.

He called it a day at HDFC when the investment performance was very strong and ensured a seamless and smooth transition.

He completed his PGDM from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore in 1991. Before this, he has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Prashant has worked with SBI Mutual Fund (1991-1993) as well as Zurich India Mutual Fund (1993- 2003) in different capacities. He moved to HDFC Mutual Fund, subsequent to the takeover of Zurich India Mutual Fund by HDFC in 2003.

He is now in the process of setting up a boutique investment firm focused on long term investing.