Temple raider - Ravi Mehrotra - 85BMD

Economic Times
February 15, 2005

Ravi Mehrotra, head of Franklin Templeton Investments, is one of those who believe that the mantra to success in the competitive world of investment management lies in being guided by virtues like discipline, patience and independent thought.

Some of these have paid off, as reflected in Mehrotra’s success in taking Templeton to the top of the mutual fund sweepstakes as the leading private fund house managing assets worth Rs 16,000 crore now.

There is another reason to gloat: the IPO of Templeton Flexicap fund has made history, mobilising over Rs 1,950 crore — a new high for an open-ended equity fund in the country.

Not to mention the record number of investor applications, estimated at two lakh, which poured in riding on the success of star performers in its funds’ stable like Templeton Prima and Templeton Bluechip.

All this could be gratifying for Mehrotra, who was part of the founding team of Kothari Pioneer, the first private player to enter the domestic MF business back in 1993.


A decade later, since taking over the reigns at Templeton, the fund house’s fortunes have been on an upswing, marked by an impressive growth in assets and in the performance of various schemes. For Mehrotra, donning the garb of a marketing man has come quite late.

Prior to his appointment as president of Templeton India in early ’03, Mr Mehrotra was director and chief investment officer (equity). He was in charge of investment strategy, asset allocation and directional support for Templeton’s equity schemes.

The XLRI alumni cut his teeth in investment banking. Starting off at Bank of America in Kolkata, he moved on to Mumbai as a member of the investment banking and treasury group.

In 1991, he left BankAm and co-founded Prime Securities. Two years later he moved to Kothari Pioneer. When Templeton took over Pioneer in ’02 he remained with the fund house.

Mehrotra has the rare gift of being able to demystify the stock markets in a simple, yet intelligent, manner.

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Ravi Mehrotra (85BMD) has been in the media articles (BT,BW, BI, ET, BizStandard,, etc.) so many time during last 8 months or so, that one can create a separate blog to cover him:0)

He was covered on xlalumni blog in August:
http://xlalumni.blogspot.com/2004/08/movements-at-franklin-templeton.html