Shifting Stance

ING Mutual Fund started operations in 1999 as ING Vysya Mutual Fund which later underwent a change with the joint venture between Vysya Bank and the Dutch-based ING Group. From an also-ran entity for the first five years, the AMC got into expanding its offerings from 2004. It has a complete bouquet of schemes for both retail and institutional investors, but struggles on performance.
In 2006, OptiMix, the multi-manager division of ING Investment Management, launched multi-manager fund of funds. Conceptually the idea was good, but it was way ahead of its time, which met with a natural decline and merged with ING. The AMC has a few interesting international funds in its stable, with focus on Latin America, global commodities and real estate.

This article was originally published on December 10, 2012.