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Birla Mutual Fund to treble branches by year-end

Birla Mutual Fund, India's largest private sector mutual fund, has decided to treble its distribution network from 14 centres to 50 centres by the year-end to provide increased customer service to its broadening investor base.

Birla Mutual Fund at present has at least one centre each in all the major states. Two to three new centres will be opened in each of the states where it already has a presence.

The decision follows the increasing number of customers in cities where it does not have a direct presence. The opening of new centres will also help bring in new customers in these cities, as they will have direct access to BMF's investment centres.

''Our past experience has shown that second line cities like Visakhapatnam, Ludhiana, Baroda, Nagpur, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Panaji have significant business volumes while at the same time have no direct presence by a mutual fund.

"A metro like Bombay may have a business potential of Rs 2 billion vis-a-vis Rs 40 million in a second line city. The crucial difference is that while Bombay has more than 20 mutual funds competing for the same pie, many second line cities virtually have no direct presence of any mutual funds.

"We will be the first private sector mutual fund to have a direct presence in many of these new centres. There is a lot of value addition that one can provide when we are the first to enter a new market,'' N K Sharma, chief business development officer, BMF, said.

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