Heard on the Street: Kalpen Parekh resigns

Birla Sun Life retail sales head seen moving out

Kalpen Parekh, retail sales head of Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company (AMC), is rumoured to have put in his papers. Speculation is that Mr Parekh is headed for IDFC Mutual Fund as the deputy chief executive officer (CEO).

In response to a text query on the matter, Birla Sun Life AMC’s CEO A Balasubramaniam said, “Not so far.” IDFC Mutual Fund’s managing director Naval Bir Kumar did not respond to a text query.

Mr Parekh was part of the team led by Ajay Srinivasan and Pankaj Razdan, who quit ICICI Prudential AMC to join the Aditya Birla group. The move to rope in Mr Parekh is seen as an attempt by IDFC Mutual Fund to boost its equity business.

IDFC Mutual Fund, which was previously owned by Standard Chartered Bank, has a major chunk of its assets under management in fixed income products. Equity products fetch higher margin for mutual funds than fixed income schemes.

(Contributed by Nishanth Vasudevan)