Ex-pharmacist plans India fund

London: Pharmacist-turned-fund-manager Jayesh Manek is weighing up the launch of an India fund as the latest step in an idiosyncratic career that saw him thrust into fund management after winning a newspaper's investment contest.

Manek's professional life was turned around by chance in the mid-1990s after he won the Sunday Times' Fantasy Fund Manager competition two years on the trot.

The victories prompted Manek, who owned a chain of eight high street chemist shops in North West London, at the time, to set up his own fund — Manek Growth — which has recently been delivering some strong returns.

Performance

Up to last Friday, his performance in 2010 puts him in the top 10 of more than 3,300 UK-registered equity funds tracked by Lipper.

His gains of 24.65 per cent in the year-to-date have come largely through investing in UK stocks at a time when the FTSE 100 has fallen by close to two per cent.

Now, however, 54-year-old Manek is looking to India to harness growth, as he prepares for more trouble in mature markets.

"The Indian market will offer tremendous opportunity in the next 10 to 15 years. There are [only] a few economies out there expanding that fast," said Manek, who was born in Uganda but whose family came from the state of Gujarat in India.

"We have been looking at it for some time. The idea is to launch it at the right time, valuations now look a little stretched," he said.