Aditya Birla Sun Life Savings-Growth ★★★★★ Nav as on ₹ 412.4251 -0.12 (-0.03%) Things You should consider Annualized Return for 6 month: 4.03%

Suggested Investment Horizon: 3 - 6 months

Time taken to double money: 4.7 Years UTI Mastershare Direct-Growth ★★★ ★★ Nav as on ₹ 129.5165 -0.67 (-0.51%) INVEST NOW Things You should consider Annualized Return for 3 year: 5.34%

Suggested Investment Horizon: >3 years

Time taken to double money: 4.4 Years

MUMBAI: A sharp run-up in share prices in 2014 has failed to induce enthusiasm in Goldman Sachs for its Indian mutual fund business with the marquee Wall Street firm opting to join the long list of foreign giants who had elected to sell than compete with entrenched Indian leaders.Goldman Sachs is in advanced talks to sell its mutual fund business, including the central public sector ETF launched with great fanfare last year, two people close to the situation said. The firm is in talks with WisdomTree, a US-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset manager, they added.Goldman may sell the business for about Rs 120 crore, the same price it paid to acquire Benchmark Asset Management in July 2011, said a person familiar with the development. The lack of meaningful return only underscores the struggle that foreign firms have had in the domestic fund business. Indian equity markets staged a remarkable recovery in 2014 by rising 31% in dollar terms. The fortunes of the local industry changed with investors returning to equities but many foreign players still did not benefit.Competition for securing funds is fierce and local firms like HDFC, ICICI and SBI are successful due to bank branch network and name recognition.The industry’s size recently rose to over Rs 11 lakh crore in December after the bull run enticed investors to return but the top five players are all Indian funds such as HDFC, ICICI, Reliance, Birla and UTI“Goldman does not see value in Indian asset management business in the larger scheme of things,” said a person familiar with the development. In response to an ET query, Goldman Sachs said it does not comment on market speculations. A WisdomTree spokesperson said that the firm does not comment on market rumoursIf the acquisition goes through, WisdomTree will start its Indian innings with roughly .`6,800 crore of assets under management (AUM) spread across 13 schemes as on December 31. WisdomTree already runs an India-focussed ETF, one of the largest offshore funds, with assets of over $2 billion.Prashant Khemka, who was Goldman Asset Management’s head of Indian equities team based in Mumbai, along with some others in the investment team are said to have relocated to Singapore late in 2014. Mutual fund industry officials said many asset management companies — mostly owned by foreign firms — are looking to sell as they are reeling under losses and have been unable to scale-up the domestic business on expected lines.Officials of smaller fund houses said Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)’s move to ban entry load — an upfront fee that mutual funds charged unitholders to pay distributors — in August 2009 has tilted the scale in favour of the cash-rich asset managers — the top five funds in assets.Industry officials said the recent step by Sebi to increase the net worth requirement to Rs 50 crore from Rs 10 crore has also forced some fund houses to wind up operations.Four prominent global funds have already responded to the distressed environment by selling the local business.Last year, Dutch financial services group ING sold its stake in ING Investment Management to Birla Sun-Life Mutual Fund.In 2013, HDFC Mutual Fund bought the assets of Morgan Stanley Asset Management while Fidelity exited by selling its assets to L&T Finance. Deutsche Bank has recently revived efforts to sell its domestic asset management business and is believed to be in talks with a few buyers.