Eagle Eye

An adventure sports enthusiast, speed thrills Devesh Thacker. Supersonic jets, he says, fascinate him. Well, in his profession, too, Thacker has lived life in the fast lane. In a matter of nine months at Sahara Mutual Fund, Thacker vaulted from the dealer's desk to the fund manager's chair. And he has delivered the goods for his company. His fund, The Sahara Liquid Fixed Pricing, has trumped close to four dozen mutual funds to bag the No. 1 slot in our poll.

Thacker has had to work hard to earn his spurs. Born and brought up in the small town of Dhanbad in Jharkhand, Thacker shifted to Nashik to complete his graduation and post graduation and later did his management from Pune. Then, after five years with firms like ASK Financial Services, Indiabulls Financial Services and Dolat Capital Markets, he got a call from ICICI Bank in December 2004. There he spent threeand-half years in treasury "learning every aspect of the trading game".

Thacker's big break came in 2009 when Sahara Mutual Fund made him the helmsman of a star-rated scheme -- Sahara Liquid Fixed Pricing. "We spotted his ability to go beyond trading or price discovery in debt market," says N.K. Garg, CEO, Sahara Mutual Fund. The pitfall : the gloom and doom in the debt market due to the credit crisis. Smiles Thacker, "It appeared a mountain to climb given the uncertainty in the market". But the keen trekker dexterously navigated the tricky terrain.

• WINNER: Devesh Thacker
• FUND: Sahara Liquid Fixed Pricing
• FUND TYPE: Debt-Liquid
• FUND MANAGER SINCE: February 2009
• 3-YEAR ANNUALISED RETURNS: 7.22%
• INVESTING PHILOSOPHY: Always follow a disciplined investment approach
• GURU: No one in particular, but likes Robin Sharma's work (of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari fame)
• RUNNER-UP 1: Akhil Mittal, Canara Robeco Floating Rate
• RUNNER-UP 2: Ashish Kumar, LICMF Liquid