Who’s managing your small-cap fund? Often, not a specialist

Small-cap funds, the most sought-after mutual fund category that has attracted majority of investor money in the last three years, have a problem — spotting specialized talent to run investments.As a result, several of them have managers running both large-cap and small-cap funds or have co-management teams in place or, in some instances, have even the chief investment officers (CIOs) listed as the primary fund manager of small-cap funds.Investors have put over ₹1.35 trillion into small-cap funds in three years through February, yet the number of fund managers equipped to run these schemes, which demands a distinct skill set, remains limited.Assets managed by small cap mutual funds more than doubled to ₹3.64 trillion in February from ₹1.32 trillion in February 2023. Number of folios, as mutual fund accounts are termed, in the segment also more than doubled to 28 million in the same period, according to industry lobby Association of Mutual Funds of India or Amfi.Mint analyzed all the small cap schemes and found that there are 31 asset management companies (AMCs) that offer both small-cap and large-cap schemes.Of these, 12 mutual funds have the same manager overseeing both large-cap and small-cap funds.Further, among a total of 34 small-cap schemes, 11 named the CIO or head of equities as the primary fund manager.Unlike in large-cap stocks where research coverage is vast, spotting good small stocks requires digging and peeling layers.

"In large cap or midcap funds, the manager focus is on setting sector weights relative to the benchmark. But in smallcap funds this doesn't work," said Aarati Krishnan, head of advisory function at Primeinvestor.in, a research platform.

To be sure, there are no distinct regulations of the