The Indian Mutual Fund and Asset Management Companies are facing tough times and foreign asset managers are exiting in droves. Fidelity has put up its $2 billion of funds on the auction block trying to find a buyer as it exists India. This is only after a couple of months when Blackstone another of the trillion dollar asset managers existed the Indian business. In 2008 during the boom times, every Tom Dick and Harry of the asset management business wanted to get a piece of the Indian pie. The local brokerages were commanding super high valuations while growth and profits seemed endless.

Asset Management Companies in India have come a long way since the preliberalization era when only the government owned Unit Trust of India was the sole option for Indian investors.Like the other Finance Companies in India,Investment Management Companies too have grown massively in size as well as numbers.The massive Indian market which is still quite primitive in terms of financial inclusion has attracted a host of domestic and foreign investment companies.Only 4–5 per cent of household assets are in mutual funds and the top eight cities in terms of households penetrated account for 75 per cent of retail AUMs.there are only about 35 fund ‘families’ in India, as compared to the global numbers like 700-odd fund ‘familes’ in the US, 60 fund ‘families’ in China and around 70 in Japan.The Lehman crisis took a toll on the weaker asset managers but the industry continues to thrive as modernization of the Indian economy will lead to a transfer of asset from the informal sector to the formal sector.The Total Assets under Management in India as of June 2011 stands at Rs 7.43 lakh crore ($160 billion).The industry has 43 active players with Reliance MF being the largest investment company in India followed by HDFC MF.