The Hindu Business Line : Kotak Mahindra MF, Redwood join hands

Redwood Edge has lined up a string of workshops, beginning with one in Kolkata, to be attended by Kotak's distributors, including leading foreign banks. Styled `Sales & Self', these are expected to add value to the work the intermediaries have been doing for the fund.

The mandate given to Redwood Edge (the name is taken from the towering trees found in North America) is simple: motivate distributors and hone their skills. As Mr Swarup Mohanty, in charge of Kotak Mahindra MF in the east, put it, the tie-up with the consulting outfit is aimed at creating more efficiencies with the desire to increase market penetration.

Factors like enabling distributors are increasingly assuming importance in the realm of mutual funds, it is pointed out. This is because they are responsible for channelling a huge chunk of the investments that flow into funds. The frontline distributors and wholesale investors (many of them corporates and institutions) are particularly relevant here.

Such empowerment is also critical for other reasons, Mr Mohanty felt. "Besides trying to meet one's sales targets, a distributor needs to spread the message of mutual funds at a conceptual level as well. And to do that properly, the right sort of training is essential,'' he said.

Mr Prakash Rohera, the prime mover behind the Pune firm, considers mutual funds to be among the world's fastest moving financial products — a status that makes them quite special in India too. "In a typical case, a consumer will want to buy a financial product for himself. He may not like the idea of being sold,'' he said. Motivating a sales executive becomes important in such a scenario.

The Kotak mandate is not a first for Redwood Edge insofar as mutual funds are concerned, Mr Rohera maintained. In the past, it has catered to fund houses such as SBI MF and the erstwhile ITC Threadneedle MF, which later merged with Zurich India MF.

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