Goldman's Khemka leaving to launch fund

Mumbai: The India story continues to attract the industry prodigy with several impressive names in the global finance industry coming back home.

After big global names such as Gunit Chadha, Jaspal Bindra, Bhupinder Singh, it is now Prashant Khemka, chief investment officer and lead portfolio manager of Goldman Sachs India equity and Global Emerging Markets equity, who will be starting on his own.

Khemka, who is in his mid 40s, is setting up an India dedicated investment fund for both domestic as well as global investors.

“Prashant brings the unique experience of having managed developed and emerging market equities for global institutions. But he is a great believer and proponent of the Indian story and I am not surprised that he is starting his own firm in India,“ said an ex-colleague on the condition of anonymity due to compliance issues.

He joined Goldman Sachs, USA, in 2000 as an analyst in their US equity business and within the next four years he was already a portfolio manager and co-chair of investment committee responsible for near $30bn of equity assets.

But Khemka, who pulled out of IIM Ahmedabad to pursue higher studies in the US, chose to return to India in 2006 and was instrumental in setting up Goldman's office in India.

He served as the CIO and CEO of their Indian AMC and also launched the offshore GS India equity portfolio in 2007.

Within ten years of starting the India fund, he scaled up the AUM (Asset Under Management) to $2.7 billion.

His India fund generated around 9%, or 900 bps annualized outperformce, to the benchmark MSCI All Cap index.

Khemka will now be replaced by Hiren Dasani, who was earlier head of India equity research team.