Leveraging the Jio brand, Jio Financial Services’ wide network and frequent new fund launches, JioBlackRock Asset Management is aiming for a faster break-even.
The asset management company, a 50:50 joint venture between Jio Financial Services (JFS) and global asset management firm BlackRock, is confident of crossing ₹25,000-crore assets under management (AUM) this fiscal. Currently, its AUM stands at over ₹22,000 crore, up from around ₹16,000 crore in March.
“For the first six to nine months, we were focused on digital, which was largely because the Jio ecosystem was there. Between the JFS app and MyJio app, around 40 per cent of India’s population is covered. Which is a huge reach. So, this is why we said that let’s start with that. Let’s figure out how to use that most efficiently. Then, as we started getting a better understanding of that we started the distribution discussions, and there, of course, the brand helped,” Rishi Kohli, Chief Investment Officer, JioBlackRock AMC, told businessline.
“So, firstly, the Jio reach helped, and then the Jio brand because at least from smallest to largest distributor, everyone knows the Jio brand. And if you are investing, equity market related, then 95 per cent people have heard of BlackRock also. There will be some smaller towns which may not have heard, but largely at least the distributor community has heard of BlackRock as well. So, which is why I think that brand acceptance was very high,” Kohli said.
Around 37-40 per cent of the AUM of the fund house currently comes from B30 cities (beyond the top 30 cities), which is higher than the industry average of around 28 per cent. “So we are easily 10 percent higher than the industry for B30 cities. This is because of the Jio reach and brand name recognition,” the Chief Investment Officer said.
Fund launch
The asset management company on Tuesday announced the launch of the JioBlackRock Balanced Advantage Fund, an open-ended dynamic asset allocation fund. The new fund offer (NFO) will open on September 11, and close on September 25. It currently manages 16 funds.
“We are already at 17th fund now. We have been in operations for only 13-14 months. So it is greater than one fund launch a month that we are moving at, and we intend to continue that pace for the next 12 to 18 months,” Kohli said, adding the fund house is aiming for a faster break-even.
On an average, a fund house breaks even in three to five years.