Mahindra Finance may launch mutual fund business by April

Mumbai, Feb 25: Mahindra Finance, a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), which recently received licence from Sebi for mutual fund business, is likely to kick-start its MF arm by April, a top company official said.

Moreover, the company is pinning hopes on a good monsoon to improve its performance in the next fiscal. "We have recently received licence for mutual fund arm and we are currently busy filing for some of our MF products for Sebi's approval before we kick off the MF arm," Mahindra Finance Managing Director Ramesh G Iyer told PTI here.

"The team is in place. We are hopeful to make our MF arm operational by April," he said. The company is also into rural housing and insurance distribution businesses. "Our balance-sheet is currently having an AUM of around Rs 40,000 crore.

Mahindra Finance is present into sectors like rural housing with around Rs 3,000 crore assets and insurance broking," he said. Talking about rural business of Mahindra Finance, he said, "Rural business is going through tough times in different parts of the country due to weak monsoon last year and hence, rural cashflows are under pressure and the growth is a little stretched."

"Third quarter (of 2015) was a tough one. Still, January crop has been good and we do hope to have positivity by the end of the year," he said. Apart from good monsoon, the company is also betting on the proposed road projects to improve result in the current calendar year.

"We are quite hopeful that the proposed road projects will come on ground soon, and the current calendar year may see good monsoon. Thus, we do hope to see better results next year," he said.

PTI