Bank of India, a public sector bank controlled by the government of India, today said it has bought out partner AXA Investment Managers from its mutual fund arm, BoI AXA.
“Subject to the terms of the Share Purchase Agreement, Bank of India has paid Rs 900/- towards purchase of equity shares of BAIM and Rs 100/- towards purchase of equity shares of BATS,” said the bank, referring to the two holding companies through which the MF operations is owned.
It is not clear if ‘Rs 900/-‘ and ‘Rs 100/-‘ are errors or the actual amounts paid.
Bank of India said it now plans to rebrand BoI AXA Mutual Fund to BoI Mutual Fund.
The deal will enable BoI to take full control of the mutual fund business and “grow it by leveraging on the BOI brand and distribution strength,” it said, explaining the decision.
BoI AXA Mutual Fund currently manages around Rs 2,730 cr of investor money. BOI AXA is one of the smallest mutual fund operators in India. Most of the big asset management companies in the country have assets under management in excess of Rs 10,000 cr, with the biggest — SBI MF — having around Rs 58,000 cr of AUM.
AXA also has an insurance arm in India, but with the Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Group, called Bharti AXA.
BoI AXA mutual fund has been seeing a decline in its revenue in recent quarters.
BoI AXA Investment Managers had seen its revenue fall to just Rs 19.22 cr in the year ended March from Rs 25.42 in the preceding year, which itself had seen a steep fall from revenue of Rs 57.17 cr in FY19.
AXA, one of the world’s leading asset managers, was holding the Indian investments via AXA investment Managers Asia Holdings.
France-based AXA Group had assets under management (AUM) of 896 billion euros as on March end.