Do debt fund managers have skin in the game?

How do you ensure that your fund manager is looking out for your interests even as he pockets a hefty fee for managing your money? Well, in recent years, equity funds in India have used 'skin in the game' to demonstrate that they manage their funds in your best interests. Parag Parikh Mutual Fund, the earliest AMC to flag off this trend, has its promoter group, sponsors, fund managers as well as AMC employees regularly investing their own money in their sole equity funds. Motilal Oswal AMC has the same credo. HDFC AMC's flagship equity schemes feature sizeable investments by their star fund managers. While it has become the norm for equity fund managers to invest their own money in the schemes they manage, what about debt funds? Do debt fund managers eat their own cooking? That question may be a pertinent one for debt investors after they have been shaken up by episodes of misfired duration and credit calls in debt funds in the last couple of years. Value Research waded into disclosures in the latest scheme information documents of the largest debt funds by assets across three popular debt categories to find out if these debt schemes featured skin in the game. The disclosures break down investments by the scheme's