Just a day after sacking its chief trader and fund manager Viresh Joshi for alleged wrongdoings, Axis Asset Management Company has sacked another fund manager - Deepak Agrawal – who was earlier suspended along with Joshi.
“Further to our ongoing investigation, following the decision to suspend him, the employment of Mr Deepak Agrawal (Fund Manager) with Axis AMC has been terminated with effect from May 20, 2022 and he will no longer have any association whatsoever with Axis AMC and Axis Mutual Fund. Accordingly, Mr Deepak Agrawal ceases to be a Key Person of Axis AMC,” said a statement issued on Friday.
Agrawal was with the seventh-largest fund house in terms of assets under management since 2015 when he joined the mutual fund company as an equity research analyst.
Axis AMC had suspended Agrawal along with Joshi on May 6.
“As part of the process, two fund managers have been suspended pending investigation of potential irregularities,” said the statement issued on May 6.
Incidentally, the sackings come even as global major Alvarez & Marsal is conducting a probe at Axis AMC to find the nature of wrongdoings.
According to people familiar with the development, the ongoing probe will take at least a month more to be completed. Ever since the issue came out in public, various allegations including those related to front-running and kickbacks have been doing the rounds in market.
Agarwal was the fund manager for three schemes - Axis Consumption ETF, Axis Quant Fund and Axis Value Fund - as per data available with Value Research, a mutual fund tracking firm. Meanwhile, Joshi was the fund manager of five schemes, including Axis Arbitrage Fund, Axis Banking ETF, Axis Consumption ETF, Axis Nifty ETF and Axis Technology ETF.
The funds have been allocated to other fund managers, including Jinesh Gopani, Head – Equity and Ashish Naik, Fund Manager – Equity.