Asia-Pacific Financial Markets

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10690-023-09417-8

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance

Persistence: Evidence from India

Sudipta Majumdar1 · Rohan Kumar Mishra1 · Abhijeet Chandra1

Accepted: 9 July 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2023

Abstract
This study investigates the relationship of fund managers’ performance persistence
with (a) personal characteristics of managers and (b) fund characteristics. The study
uses a sample of fund managers from India to create a comprehensive dataset of
manager returns from December 2006 to March 2022. Using the four factor per-
formance model of Carhart (1997), we investigate the persistence in manager per-
formance across (a) managerial characteristics and (b) fund characteristics based on
one month holding period returns over previous 24-months estimation period. The
study indicates considerable persistence among the top decile fund managers who
are male, MBA-postgraduate, undergraduate with technical qualifications, and also
from top institutions. It is also evident among managers who are old, and possess
long experience. We also find evidence of persistence in the performance of manag-
ers from foreign funds, Indian funds, and also for the joint venture predominantly
Indian funds. This study allows investors in mutual funds to make more informed
decisions. It is also useful for recruiters and policymakers who are responsible for
appointing mutual fund managers and making policy recommendations in light of
continuing regulatory changes. This can be considered one of the earliest studies to
analyse the relationship of fund managers performance persistence with (a) personal
characteristics of managers and (b) fund characteristics from the perspective of an
emerging Indian economy.

Keywords Fund Manager · Manager Performance · Managerial Skills · Mutual

Funds · Performance Persistence

Sudipta Majumdar
sudiptamajumdarbm@iitkgp.ac.in
Rohan Kumar Mishra
rkm5721@iitkgp.ac.in
Abhijeet Chandra
abhijeet@vgsom.iitkgp.ac.in

1
Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
721302, India

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

JEL Classification G11 · G12 · G41

1 Introduction

Prior research studies in financial economics document that mutual fund manage-
ment has received the utmost attention and interest among academic scholars, which
is reflected in an enormous number of publications in recent decades (Cuthbertson
et al., 2016). After the subprime crisis in 2008, there is a spark in fund management
research1 (Fig. 1) towards behavioral inquiry (Shefrin & Statman, 2011). Fund man-
agers professionally manage investors’ money and are expected to possess particular
traits to achieve superior long-term fund performance. However, most research on
mutual fund performance equate fund performance with manager performance to
a great extent (Cuthbertson et al., 2016). There may be differences in resources and
characteristics across fund organizations and traits of fund managers that affect per-
formance. These have been supported by behavioral finance literature (Cuthbertson
et al., 2016). Mutual funds and “star” managers are regularly advertised based on
performance history and attract significant attention from investors, who need to be
able to attribute performance to make informed investment decisions. This raises
the question of whether the fund or the manager is responsible for superior perfor-
mance. According to behavioral finance theories, characteristics of managers, such
as education, age, experience, gender, etc., are relevant along with their skills and
networks that produce superior performance through the exchange of private infor-
mation (Clare et al., 2022; Cuthbertson et al., 2016).
Along with past performance, the performance persistence in future claims a
greater significance for reasons like (a) the reputation and compensation of the fund
manager depend on their consistent performance, (b) performance history determines
fund marketing, (c) investors choose funds based on past performance, (d) academi-
cally, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has to be tested for fund managerial
competency since a persistent ability would support rejecting a semi-strong EMH
(Bollen & Busse, 2005). Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) claim that security prices
should not fully reflect the information possessed by informed individuals, other-
wise no reward will be there for such costly affair of searching and collecting fresh

1
Scopus database, last access on 14.02.2023.

Fig. 1 Evolution of fund man-

agement studies (1973 to 2022)

13
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

information. Berk and Green (2004) demonstrate that diseconomies of scale would
shorten the advantage of fund managers arising from possessing superior information
when investors invest in recent winners. This context serves as the motivation for our
investigation.
Numerous research on performance persistence in the setting of funds have shown
conflicting findings for various fund samples and time periods. Some studies discover
evidence of partial or no persistence (Barras et al., 2010; Blake & Timmermann,
1998; Busse et al., 2010; Chang & Lewellen, 1984; Cuthbertson et al., 2008; Elton et
al., 1990; Fama & French, 2010; Fletcher & Forbes, 2002; Grinblatt & Titman, 1989;
Jain & Wu, 2000; Jensen, 1968; Kahn & Rudd, 1995; Mateus et al., 2016; Sharpe,
1966; Urbański et al., 2016) other line of literature report the evidence of persistence
(Bauer et al., 2006; Bers & Madura, 2000; Bessler et al., 2018; Bollen & Busse, 2005;
Carhart, 1997; Eling, 2009; Elton et al., 1996; Goetzmann & Ibbotson, 1994; Hen-
dricks et al., 1993; Otten & Bams, 2002; Vidal-García, 2013). Bessler et al. (2018)
provide empirical evidence that fund managers’ performance persistence is signifi-
cantly improved by both fund flow and manager change, in case of winner and loser
funds. The impact of fund flow is also found to be stronger than manager changes. In
addition, close-ended mutual funds with lower expense ratio and higher age show a
strong persistent behaviour in NAV and market price performance (Bers & Madura,
2000). In case of hedge fund, performance persistence exists in short-run horizon of
up to six months, and it loses significance with longer time. Different strategies like
convertible arbitrage and emerging markets hedge funds show higher persistence,
while equity long results in low persistence (Eling, 2009). Another strand of research
looks on the connection between the managerial characteristics and persistence in
performance and find the evidence of persistence across several managerial traits
(Clare et al., 2022; Lin et al., 2023). Clare et al. (2022) find that fund managers
who possess CFA qualifications, or have higher tenure and experience tend to exhibit
persistence in their performance. On contrary, there is also evidence of non-persis-
tent performance among the mutual fund managers who are experienced. Moreover,
compare to the managers with superior performance, persistence is found among the
managers with inferior performance, who tend to improve their performance, but not
attain the benchmark level due to expense ratio (Detzel & Weigand, 1998; Porter &
Trifts, 1998).
Most of the studies are conducted in the developed economy, especially in the US
and Europe. To the best of our knowledge, handful of studies are conducted on fund
performance persistence in emerging markets, with special focus on India (Balakrish-
nan, 2022; Deb, 2019; Dhar & Mandal, 2014; Guha Deb et al., 2006; Patel et al.,
2022, 2023; Roy & Deb, 2004; Sehgal & Jhanwar, 2007). There is a dearth of study
analysing the role and importance of fund as well as managers characteristics on
managers performance persistence in emerging markets, particularly in India. Hence,
investigating the persistence in mutual fund managers’ performance in Indian context
is of significant importance. There are several reasons that act as a motivation for
selecting Indian mutual fund industry as a suitable case for study. First, the mutual
fund industry in India has been experiencing a significant growth in assets under man-
agement (AUM) that has increased fivefold in the last ten years, from $110.13 billion

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

in April 2013 to $554.93 billion in April 2023 (Source: AMFI2). Moreover, the total
AUM to GDP ratio for Indian asset management companies (AMCs) is around 16%
compared to 74% globally.3 This growth dynamics indicate mutual funds’ increas-
ing popularity and importance as investment vehicles for Indian investors. Second,
Indian mutual fund industry experiences significant growth and competition among
AMCs. The industry is highly competitive with 44 AMCs operating in India and
managing over 2,500 schemes4. Currently, the top 10 AMCs control almost 80% of
the total industry AUM5.
The study aims to investigate fund managers performance persistence by both
managerial and fund characteristics. First, we examine whether fund managers per-
sonal characteristics influence the persistence in their performance. Furthermore, we
also examine the possible interaction effects between characteristics on performance
persistence. Finally, we analyse whether the fund characteristics, i.e., fund sponsor-
ship and ownership of AMC structure have any impact on manager performance per-
sistence. To control the fund performance for systematic risk variables pertaining to
market risk, size, value, and momentum, we estimate the alpha from (Carhart, 1997)
four-factor performance model as a risk-adjusted performance measure following
the recent literatures on mutual funds that use the four-factor-alpha extensively (Bal-
akrishnan, 2022; Clare et al., 2022; Deb, 2019; Lin et al., 2023; Patel et al., 2022,
2023; Urbański et al., 2016). From our results, it is evident that managerial traits
have an impact on performance persistence across managers, especially for traits
like education, gender, and wisdom. Persistence is also found in the performance of
managers of private-sponsored funds, Indian funds, and also for both joint venture
foreign and Indian funds.
Our research makes several contributes to the current body of literature on perfor-
mance persistence. First, most of the prior studies have been conducted in developed
economies. Moreover, the existing studies in Indian context focus on persistence in
fund performance. Hence, our study focuses on investigating the persistence in fund
managers performance in an emerging economy such as India where mutual fund
industry is different in asset growth, fund ownership, AMC structure and growth.
This is rarely present in the existing literature. Second, our study explores the rela-
tionship between personal characteristics and persistence in fund managers’ per-
formance, unlike previous literatures focusing on fund-specific variables and fund
performance persistence. Third, we also consider examine the relationship of fund
sponsorship and ownership of AMC structure with persistence in fund managers’
performance, which is not available in any prior studies in India. Further, we use a

2
The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) is regulator of the Indian Mutual Fund Industry, dedi-
cated to protecting and promoting the interests of mutual funds and their unit holders. https://www.amfi-
india.com/indian-mutual#:~:text=Assets%20Under%20Management%20(AUM)%20of,a%20span%20
of%2010%20years. We use average conversion rate for presenting in US dollars is ₹ 75 = $1.
3
Databank on Global Financial Development, The World Bank. https://databank.worldbank.org/source/
global-financial-development/Series/GFDD.DI.07.
4
Securities and Exchange Board of India, regulator of Indian securities market. Web source: - www.sebi.
gov.in.
5
ICRA Report on “Mutual Fund Screener 2023”. https://www.icraanalytics.com/img/PDF/MF/
Mutual%20Fund%20Screener.pdf.

13
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

comprehensive database to explore the effects of the characteristics of 231 unique

Indian mutual fund managers on their performance persistence. A fund manager may
handle several funds and frequently switch from one fund house to another. This is
the first research in the setting of an emerging market, particularly in India, to the best
of the authors’ knowledge, where we track the movements of managers over the span
of their career. We create over twelve hundred ‘manager-fund’ time-series and over
two hundred ‘manager-career’ return history concatenating different funds returns
into a manager career history. With such detailed analysis on both manager-fund and
manager-career level, our study provides insight into whether manager characteris-
tics predict the persistence in performance. The study is undertaken for a long time
period of December 2006 to March 2022, that is characterised by several periods of
disruption, crisis, covid pandemic, etc. making the financial market volatile and as a
result, it accounts for the impact that managerial characteristics have in determining
how a fund house reacts to extremes in the market.
The remainder of the paper is arranged as follows: The data and methodology are
presented in Sect. 2, and the results are discussed in Sect. 3. The paper is concluded
in Sect. 4.

2 Data and Methodology

The data on monthly net assets values (NAV) of mutual funds have been sourced from
the ACE MF database. Our mutual fund manager’s monthly returns have been com-
puted by comparing the NAV of two consecutive months as R = Ln [NAVt/ NAVt−1]
between January 1991 to March 2022. Results are related to the later sample period
December 2006 – March 2022 due to the availability of sufficiency in number of
manager observations per characteristic. Managers from open-ended equity mutual
funds with growth options have been considered in our sample. Managers from index
funds and exchange traded funds have not been taken into consideration.
ACE MF provides each fund manager’s start and end dates and name over time.
A fund is often managed by a single manager or a team of managers at a time. On
the other hand, in many cases, many managers run multiple funds at the same time.
Using data processing, we concatenate past fund returns under each manager’s name.
In doing so, our dataset has 1207 manager histories in which the same manager
appears more than once if he either manages several funds simultaneously or he
manages several funds over his career. We denote it as 1207 cases as ‘manager-
funds’. Similarly, we have created another database where each distinct manager has
a single time series of returns throughout their careers. The manager’s return for a
given month is calculated as the mean return of all funds under his supervision for
that month. We combine all such returns for each manager into a single time series
return as he switched between various funds throughout his career. It contains 231
unique manager-career returns, which we designate as “manager-career” returns. For
more statistically reliable inference during analysis, we removed managers from the
dataset who had fewer than 30 return observations.
Relevant information about fund manager characteristics like gender, education
(degree, year of graduation, and institutions attended), professional qualifications and

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 S. Majumdar et al.

industry experience are hand-picked from their bio-data available on various sources
like LinkedIn, fund websites, fund fact sheets, and google search engine (refer to
Appendix 1). Regarding the fund characteristics like sponsorship and structure of
AMC, the information has been extracted from the official website of Association of
Mutual Funds in India (AMFI)6. The summery statistics of all managerial character-
istics, pertain to managers before considering the requirement of 30 observations, are
shown (Table 1). Binary variables are represented in terms of proportion of managers
who possess the traits. To illustrate, 92.64% of the managers are male, 38.10% have
technical undergraduate qualifications, 76.62% and 31.60% of managers have MBA
and CFA degree respectively. Cross-sectional mean, standard deviation, the maxi-
mum and minimum sample values are provided for other variables. Age is measured
in years, whereas experience and tenure are assessed in months. The average age
of manager is 44 years, while average tenure and experience is 69 and 219 months
respectively.
Alpha is estimated using the four-factor model Carhart (1997) [1] as follows:
ri,t = αi + β1,i *( rm,t) + β2,i * SMB t + β3,i * HMLt + β4,i * W MLt + i,t … Eq. (1)
where the dependent variable ri,t is the excess return of manager ‘i’ over risk-
free return at period ‘t’. Independent variables include rm,t i.e., market return minus
risk-free return or Market Risk Premium (MRP); SMB is size factor (small minus
big), HML is value factor (high minus low), and WML is momentum factor (winners
minus losers). Such market data have been obtained from (Agarwalla et al., 2014)7,

6
The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) is regulator of the Indian Mutual Fund Industry,

Table 1 Managerial character- Variables Mean Standard Maximum Mini-

istics summary statistics deviation mum
Gender 92.64% N/A N/A N/A
UG Technical 38.10% N/A N/A N/A
UG Business 61.90% N/A N/A N/A
MBA 76.62% N/A N/A N/A
CFA 31.60% N/A N/A N/A
Top Inst. 85.67% N/A N/A N/A
Age 44.112 6.281 63 27
Tenure 69.84 37.91 226 26
Experience 219.567 69.746 423 49
Manager characteristics, collected from manager bios (see
examples in Appendix 1), are described using simple descriptive
statistics. In binary variables, the percentage of managers with
each feature is displayed, for example, 76.62% of managers have
MBA degree. The table shows mean, standard deviation, maximum
and minimum values for the remaining variables. Age is measured
in years, whereas experience and tenure are shown monthly

dedicated to protecting and promoting the interests of mutual funds and their unit holders. https://www.
amfiindia.com/.
7
Data repository for Indian market, maintained by IIM Ahmedabad. http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~iffm/
Indian-Fama-French-Momentum/.

13
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

which is created in the line with the Kenneth French data library for Western coun-
tries. The four coefficients (βj,i ) represent the loadings of manager risk factors. The
alpha ( αi ) indicates skills of manager i, that is risk-adjusted performance that is not
explained by other risk factors.
We follow the methodology proposed by Clare et al. (2022) for persistence test-
ing. Using the above model of Carhart (1997) for testing persistence, in every month,
fund managers are grouped into portfolio deciles according to the t-statistics of alpha
estimated from Eq. 1 computed over the preceding 24 months. As a criterion for
grouping the managers into portfolio deciles, we use the t-statistics for alpha. The
reason for this is to allow for better statistical inference over the short period of
estimation as well as the fact that managers have varying numbers of return observa-
tions. We group the decile managers in ascending order. Therefore, the top (bottom)
managers are sorted in decile 10 (decile 1) with similar sorting used for positions in
between8. Following that, we record each month’s decile (equally weighted) portfolio
return. The decile portfolios are reformed on a monthly basis. Using Eq. 1, we cal-
culate each forward-looking decile’s manager alpha. A monotonic increase (approxi-
mately) in alpha value from first decile to the tenth, is indicative of overall manager
performance persistence. The value, sign, and the level of statistical significance of
the alpha of each decile indicate its economic and statistical significance.
We investigate the persistence in manager performance for the full sample in two
levels- (a) manager-funds and (b) manager-career level. We further test for subsets
of ‘manager-funds’ samples across managers’ characteristics and fund characteris-
tics. Following Fang and Wang (2015), we classify eight manager characteristics
into four categories: physical attribute (gender, age), educational background (UG
technical education, UG business education, MBA, quality of educational institutions
attended by managers measured through NIRF ranking9), professional degree (CFA),
and work experience (industry experience and fund tenure) and. Persistence is tested
separately for each manager characteristics, like male and female. Similarly, we also
do separate study for persistence in long- and short-experienced managers. We also
examine the possible manager-characteristic interactions. For example, we find dif-
ferent results of persistence across manager gender, qualifications, experience and so
on. This prompts the question whether it is only one characteristic or a combination
of characteristics that drive the persistence. Our sample is double-sorted into four
subgroups based on two characteristics and tested for persistence for each sub-group.
This helps us determine what causes any observed persistence. We can also go for
adding more than two characteristics through the treble-sort of the sample, but we
find the size of the sub-sample is so small that will not pave for analysing persistence
in meaningful way. Fund characteristics include managers from different types of
sponsored funds (bank and private) and AMC structured funds (Indian, Foreign, joint
ventures predominantly India, and joint ventures predominantly Foreign). Similarly,
among the managerial characteristics, we double-sort managerial characteristics.

8
Managers with higher (lower) t-statistics of alpha are sorted into decile 10 (decile 1).
9
NIRF score is an indicator of the quality of educational institutions in India, released by Govt. of India.
Weblink for additional details: https://www.nirfindia.org/Home.

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

3 The Persistence in Fund Manager Performance

The results on the persistence in fund managers performance are presented in Table 2.
The results are divided into four sections based upon the following categorisations,
namely, overall persistence in section A, physical attributes in section B, educational
and professional qualifications section C, and work experience in section D. Based
on 24 months of observations, decile-ranked managers’ one-month holding period
returns are shown. Monthly alpha is shown in the table along with corresponding
t-statistics, and p-value for all decile (“Decile 1” to “Decile 10”) regressions. We
also show similar results for “Decile 10 − 1”, which stands for the difference between
top and the bottom decile for the same characteristic, e.g., the top minus bottom
decile of MBA holding managers. Finally, the last column compares top decile man-
agers across characteristics, denoted as ‘Decile 10–10’. Results are related to the later
sample period December 2006 – March 2022 due to the availability of sufficiency in
number of manager observations per characteristic.

3.1 The Performance Persistence Across Managerial Characteristics

The section A in Table 2 presents overall persistence analysis based on the whole sam-
ple managers in two categories, (a) “managers-career”, and (b) “managers-funds”. In
the first category, the sample includes 231 unique “managers-career” return observa-
tions, which we concatenate when managers move funds across their careers. The
manager’s return for a given month is calculated as the mean return of all funds
under his supervision for that month to make a “single manager-career return series”.
In second category, the sample includes 1207 “manager-funds” return observations,
where managers who manage multiple funds at once, various funds over various time
periods in the sample, or both may appear more than once.
Looking at manager-career performance persistence in first row of section A in
Table 2, the top decile (decile 10) managers produce the holding period alpha of
0.052% per month, along with corresponding t-statistic 2.175 and p-value 0.015,
thereby statistically significant at 1% level of significance (one-tail test). From
deciles 1 to 9, the alpha for the holding period changes from negative to positive, but
none of them are statistically significant. In the second-to-last column, the alpha for
holding period of the top minus bottom decile of manager-career return is 0.240%
p.m., which is statistically significant at 5%. The second row in section A shows that
the manager-fund returns persist for all 1207 managers, which is very comparable to
the manager-career returns in the previous row. At a 1% level of significance, a top
decile alpha for the holding period of 0.089% per month (pm) is statistically signifi-
cant. Alphas for other deciles are insignificant, while the decile difference between
top and bottom in manager-funds observations has a statistically significant and posi-
tive alpha of 0.255% pm at 5%.
On the Basis of a sorting time of 24-months and a holding time of 1 month, our
analysis shows substantial managerial persistence in the top decile. The results are
pretty much identical for both “manager-career” and “manager-fund” observations.
In most literature about mutual funds, it’s not clear if the manager or the fund is
responsible for the performance persistence. Our findings on ‘manager-career’ obser-

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Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

vations indicate the manager talent as it persists even if managers switch between
funds over the span of their careers. Similarly, the persistence of “manager-fund”
returns gives investors a sense of confidence that the top-decile manager-funds will
continue to perform well, without worrying about the change of managers across the
funds during their career span. The presence of persistence in both manager-fund
and manager-career observations enables us to further investigate what managerial
characteristics are responsible for such performance persistence.
We do not show results for all sorting combinations and holding period lengths for
parsimony. We analyse the persistence up to 6 months and find a qualitative similar-
ity among them. The evidence of persistence, however, is significantly undermined
by utilising a 48-month sorting period (instead of a 24-month), proving that the most
recent performance of managers is a better indicator of the performance in future.
In the remaining sections, we present the managerial performance persistence as
per the broad categorisation of the managers characteristics mentioned. We show
gender and age-wise analysis under ‘physical attribute’ in section B, education-wise
analysis under ‘educational and professional qualifications’ in section C, and finally,
experience and tenure-wise analysis under ‘work experience’ in section D. In the case
of binary variables like gender, UG education, MBA, CFA, and high-quality institu-
tions, we perform separate analysis for each sub-group, for example, male and female
managers. For other categories like age, experience and tenure, we divide managers
into two categories based on whether they are above or below their respective sample
means. The sample managers have mean age of 44.53 years, mean experience of
218.90 months, and mean tenure of 69.84 months. Each manager characteristic is
analysed separately based upon 1207 ‘manager-funds’ observations in the rest of the
rows.
In case of gender in section B of Table 2, male managers in top decile produces a
holding period or ‘forward-looking’ alpha value of 0.075% pm which is statistically
significant at 5% (one-tail test). No significant alpha is produced by any other decile
managers (decile 1 to 9) in male category, while managers in the top decile outper-
form bottom decile by alpha value of 0.258% pm, significant at 10%. Therefore,
there lies significant difference in the excess return generating skills between the top
and bottom decile of male managers. On the other hand, the female top decile man-
agers produce a significant alpha of 0.042% pm (weakly significant at 10% level),
although there is neither significant alpha in the remaining deciles of managers, nor
any evidence of persistence has been observed. It is also clear that female managers
in the top deciles underperform by 0.238% p.m. compare to managers in the bottom
decile, although not statistically significant. From the last column “decile 10–10”, we
learn that, among the managers in our sample, a portfolio made up of the top male
minus female managers in their respective top deciles produces alpha for holding
period 0.033% pm, marginally significant at 5%. These findings show the first indi-
cation that, based on a two-year evaluation period, top-performing male managers
outperform top-performing female managers throughout the course of the subsequent
month.
Another category under physical attribute is age. We split the sample in two parts,
(a) older managers (above mean age), and (b) younger-managers (below mean age).
The results exhibit persistence in the performance of older managers. Moreover, the

13
 Table 2 Performance persistence by manager characteristics
Decile 1 Decile 2 Decile 3 Decile 4 Decile 5 Decile 6 Decile 7 Decile 8 Decile 9 Decile 10 Decile Decile
10 − 1 10–10
All (231) Section A: Overall Persistence

13
Manager-Career alpha -0.188 -0.004 -0.172 -0.102 0.009 0.070 -0.143 0.069 0.059 0.052 0.240
t-value -0.377 -0.033 -1.266 -0.779 0.055 0.463 -0.974 0.459 0.447 2.175 2.242
p-value 0.353 0.487 0.104 0.219 0.478 0.322 0.166 0.324 0.328 0.015 0.013
All (1207) alpha -0.166 -0.139 0.022 -0.090 -0.024 -0.057 0.010 0.083 0.042 0.089 0.255
Manager-Fund t-value -1.340 -1.069 0.185 -0.677 -0.168 -0.412 0.067 0.613 0.294 2.551 1.753
p-value 0.091 0.143 0.427 0.250 0.433 0.341 0.473 0.270 0.385 0.006 0.041
Section B: Physical Attributes
Gender-Male alpha -0.183 -0.154 0.020 -0.134 0.009 -0.034 0.029 0.065 0.045 0.075 0.258
t-value -0.537 -1.178 0.171 -0.942 0.062 -0.239 0.203 0.469 0.323 1.676 1.380
p-value 0.296 0.120 0.432 0.174 0.475 0.406 0.420 0.320 0.374 0.047 0.085
Gender- Female alpha 0.279 0.290 0.097 0.052 0.034 -0.028 0.311 0.392 0.080 0.042 -0.238 0.033
t-value 0.178 1.388 0.505 0.259 0.170 -0.115 1.373 1.643 0.301 1.326 -0.757 0.651
p-value 0.430 0.084 0.307 0.398 0.433 0.454 0.086 0.052 0.382 0.094 0.225 0.051
Age-Older alpha -0.208 -0.161 -0.005 -0.120 -0.027 -0.115 0.076 0.040 0.099 0.087 0.295
t-value -0.620 -1.231 -0.037 -0.865 -0.176 -0.821 0.487 0.288 0.704 1.674 1.559
p-value 0.268 0.110 0.485 0.194 0.430 0.206 0.314 0.387 0.241 0.048 0.060
Age-younger alpha -0.009 0.016 -0.038 -0.098 0.099 -0.073 0.009 0.022 0.028 0.065 0.074 0.021
t-value -0.061 0.116 -0.276 -0.559 0.670 -0.438 0.052 0.129 0.184 0.380 0.331 0.097
p-value 0.476 0.454 0.391 0.289 0.252 0.331 0.479 0.449 0.427 0.352 0.371 0.461
UG Technical Section C: Educational and Professional Qualifications
alpha -0.269 -0.124 -0.028 -0.150 -0.032 -0.018 0.136 0.101 0.070 0.033 0.303
t-value -0.234 -0.985 -0.214 -0.931 -0.212 -0.144 0.933 0.711 0.517 1.897 1.506
p-value 0.408 0.163 0.416 0.177 0.416 0.443 0.176 0.239 0.303 0.030 0.067
UG Business alpha -0.081 -0.115 -0.002 0.008 -0.017 -0.119 -0.089 0.126 0.041 0.098 0.179 -0.065
t-value -0.606 -0.810 -0.018 0.064 -0.121 -0.695 -0.566 0.803 0.266 0.667 0.902 -0.318
p-value 0.273 0.210 0.493 0.475 0.452 0.244 0.286 0.211 0.395 0.253 0.184 0.375
S. Majumdar et al.
 Table 2 (continued)
Decile 1 Decile 2 Decile 3 Decile 4 Decile 5 Decile 6 Decile 7 Decile 8 Decile 9 Decile 10 Decile Decile
10 − 1 10–10
MBA alpha -0.191 -0.118 -0.020 -0.104 -0.019 -0.041 0.020 0.047 0.019 0.060 0.251
t-value -0.445 -0.903 -0.153 -0.730 -0.131 -0.295 0.138 0.323 0.138 1.694 1.374
p-value 0.328 0.184 0.439 0.233 0.448 0.384 0.445 0.374 0.445 0.045 0.086
Non-MBA alpha 0.025 0.005 0.044 0.137 -0.140 0.168 0.181 0.010 0.217 -0.045 -0.070 0.015
t-value 0.148 0.031 0.298 0.957 -1.029 1.134 1.097 0.062 1.264 -0.227 -0.269 0.438
p-value 0.441 0.488 0.383 0.170 0.153 0.129 0.137 0.475 0.104 0.410 0.394 0.331
CFA alpha -0.173 -0.210 0.043 -0.131 -0.134 0.212 0.058 0.199 -0.076 0.068 0.241
t-value -1.226 -1.292 0.314 -0.869 -0.791 1.347 0.347 1.329 -0.494 0.442 1.153
p-value 0.111 0.099 0.377 0.193 0.215 0.090 0.365 0.093 0.311 0.330 0.125
Non-CFA alpha -0.224 0.007 -0.041 0.000 -0.099 -0.105 0.038 -0.069 0.136 0.057 0.280 0.011
t-value -0.395 0.056 -0.322 0.001 -0.656 -0.712 0.263 -0.463 0.995 1.738 1.454 0.055
p-value 0.347 0.478 0.374 0.500 0.256 0.239 0.396 0.322 0.161 0.042 0.074 0.478
High Edu Qual alpha -0.199 -0.130 0.037 -0.105 -0.039 -0.021 0.014 0.057 0.035 0.040 0.239
t-value -0.299 -0.985 0.311 -0.781 -0.266 -0.149 0.094 0.414 0.252 1.536 1.293
p-value 0.383 0.163 0.378 0.218 0.395 0.441 0.462 0.340 0.401 0.064 0.099
Low Edu Qual alpha 0.026 -0.013 -0.149 -0.014 -0.020 -0.052 0.134 0.141 0.274 0.140 0.114 -0.100
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

t-value 0.166 -0.089 -0.948 -0.093 -0.110 -0.303 0.767 0.856 1.288 0.784 0.481 -0.450
p-value 0.434 0.465 0.172 0.463 0.456 0.381 0.222 0.197 0.100 0.217 0.316 0.326
Long Section D: Work Experience
Experience alpha -0.274 -0.079 -0.101 -0.142 -0.030 -0.091 0.120 -0.028 0.062 0.074 0.348
t-value -0.424 -0.579 -0.717 -0.909 -0.199 -0.593 0.757 -0.181 0.432 2.093 1.773
p-value 0.336 0.282 0.237 0.182 0.421 0.277 0.225 0.428 0.333 0.019 0.039
Short alpha 0.000 -0.045 0.066 -0.133 -0.028 -0.098 -0.049 0.054 0.108 0.056 0.056 0.018
Experience t-value 0.002 -0.354 0.511 -0.981 -0.196 -0.679 -0.313 0.382 0.797 0.458 0.356 -0.085
p-value 0.499 0.362 0.305 0.164 0.423 0.249 0.377 0.352 0.213 0.324 0.361 0.466

13
 Table 2 (continued)
Decile 1 Decile 2 Decile 3 Decile 4 Decile 5 Decile 6 Decile 7 Decile 8 Decile 9 Decile 10 Decile Decile
10 − 1 10–10

13
Long-Tenured alpha -0.092 -0.030 -0.134 -0.008 -0.149 -0.041 0.030 0.050 0.079 0.090 0.181
t-value -0.694 -0.218 -0.954 -0.056 -0.947 -0.270 0.189 0.336 0.542 0.621 0.927
p-value 0.244 0.414 0.171 0.478 0.172 0.394 0.425 0.369 0.294 0.268 0.178
Short-Tenured alpha -0.190 -0.243 -0.036 -0.129 -0.055 -0.047 -0.049 0.136 -0.119 0.058 0.248 0.031
t-value -0.394 -1.629 -0.272 -0.974 -0.375 -0.303 -0.349 0.768 -0.781 1.408 1.240 0.031
p-value 0.347 0.053 0.393 0.166 0.354 0.381 0.364 0.222 0.218 0.080 0.108 0.488
This table displays the monthly alpha, along with corresponding t-statistic, and p-value for all the deciles that have been formed based on the Carhart four-factor
model. Using 231 distinct “manager-career” results and 1207 “manager-fund” results, the data has been analysed over a 24-month formation period. The data has
been categorised into 10 equally weighted decile portfolios each month, and the process is repeated continuously. The last column of the table provides the difference in
portfolio results of the top and bottom decile of managers across characteristics. This sample period was from December 2006 to March 2022
S. Majumdar et al.
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

top decile of these managers generates excess positive return of 0.295% pm over
their respective bottom decile counterparts. In case of young managers, the study
finds no evidence of persistent performance. The top older managers outperform the
top young managers, but this is not significant. We assume that older managers have
better understanding about the financial market and expected to possess more experi-
ence which results in positive and consistent performance, while younger managers
have a short-term focus on early success and take more risky investment decisions
(Fischer & Pollock, 2004; Hirshleifer, 1993). Therefore, the older managers exhibit
performance persistence compare to the younger managers.
In section C of Table 2, an in-depth review on managers’ qualifications and perfor-
mance persistence shows the prevalence of persistence among the managers with an
undergraduate degree in any technical discipline (top decile). Moreover, the top decile
managers outperform their bottom decile counterparts by a positive alpha of 0.303%
pm, significant at the 10% level. However, managers with an undergraduate degree in
any business-related field fails to show any persistence in their performance. There-
fore, it can be inferred that the top decile managers with technical education can pos-
sess better portfolio managing strategy with their advanced data-analytical skills and
produce consistent performance as compare to other managers. Our findings on man-
agers with MBAs and those from top institutions (NIRF-ranked) show that top decile
managers in both categories outperform their bottom deciles in within the respective
category and yield a significant positive alpha. However, there are no observable dif-
ferences between top decile managers who have MBAs and managers who do not,
or between managers from top institutions and managers who do not (top decile), in
terms of generating persistence in their performance. In case of managers with CFA,
we find no persistence in their performance. The non-CFA managers in top decile
produces a significant positive alpha and also outperforms the bottom decile manag-
ers, while comparing top decile CFA managers to top decile non-CFA managers, we
find no discernible difference in their alphas. Therefore, MBA degree and education
from top institutes aids the fund managers to produce persistent performance. We can
argue that management education and that is from top institutions, in particular, allow
for peer-learning, talent-pool and interaction with the alumni of the institutions. This
enables the managers to build a strong alumni social network. Therefore, the fund
managers belong to the alumni network may possess superior information advan-
tage. Thus, these connected managers undertake more risk and attract more capital
to improve their portfolio performance by capitalising on investment opportunities
through the connections in their network (Rossi et al., 2018).
Section D of Table 2 focuses on the relationship between managers’ work experi-
ence and performance persistence. Managers with long experience exhibit persis-
tent performance behavior. The top decile of managers within the long experience
category outperforms their respective bottom decile counterparts yielding a positive
alpha of 0.348% that is significant at 5% significance level. Finally, we find no evi-
dence of performance persistence among the short-experienced managers, and also
for both long and short-tenured. Therefore, the managers who possess long experi-
ence, gain substantial knowledge about the market and industry with good predic-
tion power, produce persistent return (Clare et al., 2022; Golec, 1996). Our manager
characteristic and persistence tests show that the performance of top decile managers

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

persist for longer than one month. But the persistence results are more impacted when
the evaluation period is extended to more than two years.
It may be possible that the manager’s traits interact in a way that affects perfor-
mance persistence. Some interesting findings in Table 2 show how the persistence is
impacted by gender, experience, and CFA qualifications. In Table 3, we look into the
interaction effects of these key findings further.
Our sample is double-sorted into four subgroups based on two characteristics, and
each of them are tested for persistence. However, controlling for one characteristic,
we examine the top deciles of another characteristic. For instance, in section A, ini-
tially we group the sample based on gender (‘Male’ and ‘Female’) before separating
them into those with long (above average) and short (below average) experience. We
then report the findings of the persistence for the top decile managers for all the sub-
groups. This is followed by testing for difference between the male and female man-
agers in top decile, denoted “Men/Female,“ within both the long and short experience
mangers categories. Similarly, among the male managers in top decile, comparison is
made between long and short experience managers, denoted “Long/Short”, to see if
there is any difference. In Table 3, all cell displays alpha of the top decile portfolio,
corresponding t-statistic, and p-value (respectively in vertical order).
Based on Table 2, we report that, within the top decile, male managers outperform
their female counterparts. We also report that managers with long-term experience
outperform short-term experienced managers. This is further explored in Table 3. In
section A, we find that long-experienced male managers perform better than the long-
experienced female managers by a positive alpha of 0.298% pm (top decile), which is
proved to be statistically insignificant. Similarly, we find no significant performance
difference between the male and female managers among those with short (below
average) experience in top decile. Section A also shows that among the male manag-
ers, long experienced managers outperform their counterparts with short experience

Table 3 Characteristics interactions in Performance persistence

Experience Section A: Gender and Experience Section B: CFA and Experience
Male Female Male/Female CFA Non-CFA CFA/Non-CFA
Long alpha 0.329 0.031 0.298 0.248 -0.019 0.267
t-value 1.734 0.112 0.879 1.553 -0.129 1.443
p-value 0.043 0.456 0.190 0.061 0.449 0.075
Short alpha 0.098 0.083 0.015 -0.173 0.142 -0.315
t-value 0.622 0.371 0.055 -0.755 0.890 -1.129
p-value 0.267 0.356 0.478 0.226 0.187 0.130
Long/Short alpha 0.231 -0.051 0.421 -0.161
t-value 1.717 -0.004 1.509 -0.749
p-value 0.044 0.499 0.066 0.227
We test performance persistence in four subgroups of our “manager-funds” sample, which is double-
sorted by two managerial characteristics. Controlling for one characteristic, we examine the other
characteristic’s top deciles, e.g., in section A, we sort by gender and then by experience. Each subgroup’s
top decile persistence results are shown. Following this, we compare the top decile managers of male
and female category within subgroup “Male/Female,“ and the top decile managers who are male along
with long and short experience, labelled “Long/Short,“ etc. This table displays the monthly alpha, along
with corresponding t-statistic, and p-value for the top decile portfolio vertically. Our sample period was
from December 2006 to March 2022

13
 Table 4 Manager performance persistence by fund characteristics (Manager-Fund Level)
Decile 1 Decile 2 Decile 3 Decile 4 Decile 5 Decile 6 Decile 7 Decile 8 Decile 9 Decile Decile De-
10 10 − 1 cile
10–10
Bank Section A: Fund Sponsorship
Sponsored alpha -0.071 -0.009 -0.092 0.091 -0.027 -0.069 -0.071 0.054 0.143 0.127 0.198
t-value -0.524 -0.061 -0.556 0.547 -0.153 -0.394 -0.378 0.355 0.826 0.735 0.255
p-value 0.300 0.476 0.289 0.293 0.439 0.347 0.353 0.361 0.205 0.232 0.400
Private alpha -0.090 -0.089 0.005 -0.119 0.012 -0.011 0.011 0.071 0.037 0.102 0.192 0.025
Sponsored t-value -0.706 -0.685 0.043 -0.895 0.088 -0.082 0.074 0.506 0.254 0.702 0.993 0.110
p-value 0.241 0.247 0.483 0.186 0.465 0.467 0.470 0.307 0.400 0.242 0.161 0.456
Foreign Section B: Asset Management Company (AMC) Structure
alpha 0.195 -0.142 -0.015 -0.071 0.098 0.008 -0.002 -0.047 0.240 0.200 0.005
t-value 1.200 -0.837 -0.083 -0.432 0.626 0.046 -0.010 -0.299 1.405 1.688 0.020
p-value 0.116 0.202 0.467 0.333 0.266 0.482 0.496 0.383 0.081 0.046 0.492
Indian alpha -0.226 -0.182 -0.023 -0.130 0.025 -0.068 0.035 0.038 -0.005 0.052 0.277 0.148
t-value -1.835 -1.365 -0.190 -1.030 0.175 -0.473 0.242 0.256 -0.039 1.667 1.513 0.679
p-value 0.034 0.087 0.425 0.152 0.431 0.318 0.405 0.399 0.484 0.048 0.066 0.249
Joint Venture alpha -0.248 -0.015 0.034 -0.409 -0.198 0.197 0.317 -0.066 -0.141 0.109 0.357
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

Foreign t-value -1.200 -0.074 0.155 -1.433 -0.766 0.774 1.348 -0.244 -0.671 0.470 1.669
p-value 0.116 0.470 0.439 0.077 0.223 0.220 0.090 0.404 0.252 0.320 0.049
Joint Venture alpha -0.086 -0.148 -0.133 0.033 0.060 0.068 -0.055 0.100 0.126 0.110 0.196 -0.001
India t-value -0.653 -1.025 -0.959 0.234 0.413 0.448 -0.379 0.687 0.907 1.678 1.423 -0.003
p-value 0.257 0.153 0.169 0.408 0.340 0.327 0.352 0.246 0.183 0.047 0.078 0.499
This table illustrates the persistence of managers’ performance based on 1207 “manager-fund” outcomes. The first two rows display the results of the managers of each
individual group based on fund-sponsorship. The other rows illustrate the results of the managers from each individual group based on the AMC-Structure ownership.
A Carhart four-factor model is used to rank funds into 10 equal-weighted decile portfolios each month. Each decile portfolio is held for one month and repeated on a
recurring basis. Each decile produces a time series of holding period returns, and the model is evaluated across set of returns for each holding period. The alpha, along
with its corresponding t-statistic and p-value for each decile regression (Decile 1–Decile 10) are shown in the table. Additionally, the portfolio difference result of the top
and bottom decile managers within each feature, marked “Decile 10–1,“ is shown. The survey time span was December 2006–March 2022

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

by 0.231% pm at 5% significance. We find no statistically significant difference in the

performance of female managers one month in advance, regardless of their level of
experience. The findings of section A suggest that it is experience, not the gender, that
is considered to be the primary factor in explaining the persistent findings regarding
experience and gender.
The section B in Table 3, focuses on the interaction effect of CFA designation and
experience on persistence of top decile managers. We observe that the CFA manag-
ers outperform the managers without CFA one-month ahead by a significant alpha of
0.267% pm. The study also finds that managers with both long-experience and CFA
degree (top decile) outperform their short-experienced CFA counterparts by alpha
0.421% pm, that is weakly significant at 10%. Among short-experienced managers
and non-CFA managers separately, the effect of CFA degree, in former case, and the
experience in later case, do not have any significant impact. Again, section B suggests
that long-experience and the CFA designation are key to the persistence findings.
Overall, the study finds that top decile managers continue to have persistence
in performance. Managerial characteristics are found to play an important role in
persistent performance behavior. Persistence is seen to be more prominent among
those managers who are male and older; holding undergraduate technical and MBA
degree; long experience; and also, have studied from top institutions. However, while
evaluating the interaction effects of the managerial characteristics, it is observed that
longer experience explains a major part of persistence findings across gender as well
as the CFA qualifications.

3.2 The Persistence Across Fund Characteristics

In this section, we analyse the persistence in manager performance across the fund
characteristics. The fund managers are classified in two broad fund categories based
on (a) fund sponsorship and (b) Asset Management Company (AMC) structure.
Under the former category, there are managers from bank-sponsored, institution-
sponsored, and private-sponsored mutual funds. The latter category of mutual funds
includes managers from foreign funds, Indian funds, joint venture predominantly for-
eign funds, and joint venture predominantly Indian funds. Due to insufficient obser-
vations, we dropped managers from institution-sponsored funds from the analysis.
Similar to Table 2, in Table 4, the performance persistence of managers across several
fund characteristics are investigated at the manager-fund level using 1207 sample
observations.
Section A of Table 4 focuses on performance persistence of managers in fund
sponsorship category. Under this category, we observe that the holding period alpha,
across both the bank and private-sponsored funds, changes from negative to positive
from decile 1 (bottom) to decile 10 (top) but is not statistically significant. Therefore,
we find no evidence of persistence in the performance among the managers of bank
and private-sponsored funds. Although the bank-sponsored fund managers outper-
form the private-sponsored counterparts by 0.025% monthly holding period alpha,
but this is not statistically significant.
In section B, we analyse the persistence in managers performance by the owner-
ship structure of AMC. From the results, we observe that the managers from top

13
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

decile from foreign mutual funds yields a significant ‘forward-looking’ alpha value of
0.2% pm and also outperforms their counterparts in bottom decile, which is not sta-
tistically significant. In case of Indian funds, top decile managers produce a positive
alpha of 0.052% pm, that is statistically significant and also outperform the bottom
decile managers by a monthly alpha of 0.277% pm. In addition, we find that the top
decile “Joint Venture-Predominantly foreign” fund managers outperform the bottom
decile by 0.357% pm alpha which is significant. On the other hand, managers in the
top decile of “Joint Venture-Predominantly India” funds produce an alpha of 0.110%
pm, which is significant at 5% and outperform their bottom decile counterparts. The
top decile managers of the latter category outperform the former, but that is not sta-
tistically significant. Therefore, we find evidence of persistence in the performance of
managers of foreign funds, Indian funds, and also for the joint venture predominantly
Indian funds. From the results, we can infer that AMC structure plays important role
on persistence in managers performance. In this backdrop, we argue that the AMC’s
asset intensity, good governance and managers selection abilities act as an effec-
tive tool for managers’ persistent performance compared to the goodwill of the fund
sponsors.

4 Conclusions

The paper explores the persistence in fund manager performance across the mana-
gerial and fund characteristics in emerging Indian economy. Using a sample of 231
unique fund managers from Indian open-ended equity mutual funds, the study is con-
ducted in two levels, (a) 231 ‘manager-career’ observations and (b) 1207 ‘manager-
fund’ observations, for the period December 2006-March 2022, using Carhart four
factor performance model. In ‘manager-fund’ sample, the study tests for subsets of
samples across managers’ characteristics and fund characteristics.
Using sorting period of 24-months and a holding period of 1-month, the study
reveals a clear evidence of persistence among the top decile managers across both
the ‘manager-career’ and ‘manager-fund’ levels. The study also reports that the top-
decile of managers who are male, MBA-postgraduate, undergraduate with technical
qualifications, and also from top institutions exhibit greater persistence. Moreover,
the senior managers and managers with higher experience demonstrate a significant
degree of persistence compared to the managers devoid of these characteristics. In
addition, the findings also show that managerial characteristics jointly impact the per-
formance persistence. We observe that long experience is more important than short
experience and impacts the persistence attributed to the CFA qualification and gender.
However, the study finds a significant role of fund characteristics on managers per-
formance persistence. The study reports the persistent behavior in the performance
of managers from foreign funds, Indian funds, and the joint venture predominantly
Indian funds. Therefore, the study finds more prominence of performance persistence
across the characteristics of managers rather than funds. So, we can conclude that
managerial characteristics play a more significant role than fund resources in produc-
ing the persistent performance of managers.

13
 S. Majumdar et al.

From an academic viewpoint, evidence of persistence in the performance of fund

managers at instances supports the rejection of efficient market hypothesis, thereby
establishing market inefficiency in emerging Indian market. Therefore, the investors
can gain insight into fund managers’ future performance potential by looking at their
performance in the past.
We believe that the reported findings are pertinent to all the stakeholders in the
mutual fund industry. Both the fund manager’s and the fund’s behavior can provide
useful insight when formulating and enforcing investment policies. This allows mutual
fund investors to make more informed decisions. It is also useful for recruiters and poli-
cymakers who are responsible for appointing mutual fund managers and making policy
recommendations in light of continuing regulatory changes. This study can be viewed
as a baseline, and future academic studies could include additional social, cultural and
cognitive traits of fund managers that may influence their performance persistence,
using different methodologies like Carhart six-factor alpha and double-sorted alpha.

5 Appendix 1: Example of Manager Bios

In this table, we present a selection of manager bios without disclosing their identity. From bios such as
these, we extracted the personal characteristics of fund managers characteristics.
XXXX is a Fund Manager and Senior Analyst with XXXX AMC Limited (XXXX). He has an overall
experience of 13 years in the equity and capital market space. XXXX joined XXXX in February
2011 as a part of the Equity Fund Management and Analyst team. He specializes in the Banking and
Financial Services sector. Prior to joining XXXX, XXXX worked with XXXX Securities Limited and
XXXX Private Limited. XXXX holds an MBA in Finance from IIM Indore.
Mrs. XXXX is Bachelor of Commerce & Master of Business Administration. She has been with
XXXX AMC for over 20 years. She has been a Fund Manager since June, 2004. Prior experience in-
cludes Fund Management of Equity, Balanced and Offshore Equity Funds, Macro Research, Quantita-
tive Analysis and Corporate Financial Planning. Her previous assignment was with XXXX Industries
Ltd in the Financial Planning Cell.
XXXX is the Head of Equity at XXXX AMC. He joined XXXX AMC in 2009 as an Equity Fund Man-
ager and worked his way to Head of Equity in 2016. He currently manages the flagship XXXX Long
Term Equity Fund amongst other funds. Prior to XXXX AMC, Jinesh was associated with XXXX
AMC as a Portfolio Manager, where he was responsible for alternative assets across the growth, value
and dividend basket, from June 2008 to October 2009. He was also associated with XXXX India
Capital as a Sr. Research Analyst responsible for the BFSI & Infrastructure sector and held a sectorial
portfolio manager role for investments. He was with XXXX India Capital from February 2006 to May
2008.
Mr. XXXX, CIO, XXXX Mutual Fund was ranked as one of the top 5 equity fund managers in 2018 by
ET Wealth – Morningstar. With an experience of 28 years, he prefers quality businesses with differenti-
ated offerings and a significant competitive edge over peers. Mr XXXX has proven his mettle while
dealing with such situations and has delivered consistent returns over the years. Prior to joining XXXX
Financial Services, he was Head of Equities at XXXX Mutual Fund. His previous assignments include
Chief Investment Officer at XXXX Global Services and XXXX Capital and Co-Head - Equities with
XXXX Investment Managers Private Limited. Mr. XXXX holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Manage-
ment from IIM Bangalore and a degree in B.E (Mechanical) Engineering from IIT Bombay.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Parama Barai (IIT Kharagpur), the editors, and the
anonymous reviewers whose comments were helpful in improving this work. S. Majumdar also thank the
UGC for financial support throughout the study period, however, the UGC in whatsoever manner wasn’t
involved in data collection, empirical design and analysis, or preparation and review of the manuscript.
Usual disclaimers apply.

13
Fund Characteristics, Managerial Skills and Performance Persistence:…

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