Barings to launch India fund

Barings is to add to its Asian equity fund range with an Indian product for recent hire Ajay Argal.

The Baring India fund, a Dublin-domiciled UCITS vehicle, will launch on 7 December, investing in 70% Indian equities and 30% in companies listed within the Indian subcontinent.

It will be a highly concentrated portfolio of between 30 and 50 stocks, benchmarked against the MSCI India 10/40 index.

Argal joined the group as head of Indian equities in September, as reported by Investment Week in August. He previously ran the Birla Sunlife India Advantage fund and the India Excel fund and has more than 18 years of experience investing in the region.

At Barings he will be based with the Asian equity team in Hong Kong reporting to Asia CIO Wilfrid Sit.

He said the fund is likely to favour key themes such as consumption, financial services, infrastructure and IT services.

"India's youthful population is fast developing a preference for consumer goods, while demand for housing and for financial services is likely to remain strong for many years to come as the pace of urbanisation accelerates," he said.

"Also, the government plans to invest $1trn on upgrading India's roads and energy sectors and this should help improve productivity as well as provide a further boost to growth."

He added India's main export industry is IT services where its educated workforce and cost advantage make it a global leader and forecasts the sector to grow from $8bn today to $15bn by 2014.

Barings already manages $288m of assets in Indian equities for institutional investors.