Checking a fund manager's record: three worked examples

The problem

A fund's returns belong to whoever ran it during the window you are looking at. If the manager changed two years ago, its 5-year return is mostly someone else's work. Manager pages on this site exist to untangle that, but they reward a careful reading. This post works through three managers' pages with real figures as of 9 October 2026. For what to do when a manager leaves a fund you already hold, see the fund manager changes guide.

What a manager page shows

Every name in the fund managers directory opens a page with four parts:

• Schemes named on and Managing since: how many schemes the house's filings name the person on, and the earliest start date those filings disclose.
• Background: qualifications and experience, transcribed from the Scheme Information Documents and the Statement of Additional Information.
• Funds they manage: a table ranked by 3-year CAGR, with star rating, 1Y, 3Y and 5Y returns, expense ratio and AUM. Schemes without a three-year record are left out.
• A link back to the fund house.

What the page does not show is the start date on each individual fund. For that, open the fund and find the Fund Managers card, which shows "Managing since" for each name on that scheme, taken from its Scheme Summary Document. That date is the line that separates the manager's record from a predecessor's.

Example one: a record that is entirely the manager's

Rajeev Thakkar is named on six PPFAS schemes. Their start dates, from each fund's filing:

Each start date sits at or just before the fund's launch, so every number on these funds is from his tenure. Only the first three have the three-year record his ranked table needs.

The flexi-cap fund carries the longest record. From its launch on 28 May 2013 to its latest NAV on 8 October 2026, it compounded at 17.64% a year. Of the 16 flexi-cap funds with Direct-plan NAVs going back that far, only Quant Flexi Cap did better over the same dates, at 19.87%. The recent record is plainer: a 1-year return of −5.78% against a flexi-cap median of −1.39%, and a 3-year CAGR of 11.76% against a median of 11.50%.

The five stars on the ELSS fund need reading too. Its performance percentile within ELSS is 52.1, roughly the middle. The stars come from the other three parts of the star rating: it sits at the top of its peer group on low volatility, low cost and shallow falls.

One more thing the filing shows: these are team-run funds. The flexi-cap fund lists seven people by asset class, including Raunak Onkar for overseas equity, also since 2013. A manager page credits the person; the fund's record belongs to the team.

Example two: a long tenure, and a new name on old returns

Chirag Setalvad of HDFC has long tenures on two funds. His filings date his start on HDFC Mid Cap to 25 June 2007 and on HDFC Small Cap to 28 June 2014. Our Direct-plan NAV history for HDFC Mid Cap starts in January 2013, so its 10-year figure is entirely his.

Neither is at the top of its category, and neither is at the bottom: the 10-year mid-cap median among those 17 funds is 15.57%. HDFC Mid Cap is also by far the largest fund in its category, at ₹1,05,346 crore of AUM in AMFI's July to September 2026 data. HDFC Small Cap holds two stars among 24 rated peers, held back mainly by its 3-year performance percentile of 15.2.

Now the trap. HDFC's Retirement Fund Equity Plan lists him as equity manager from 1 September 2026, five weeks before these figures. Its 3-year CAGR of 8.62% and its four stars were earned before he took it on. If a fund like this appears beside his name, whether on his page or on the fund's own, its trailing returns tell you about the previous managers, not him.

Example three: a known name with a short record here

Kenneth Andrade manages the funds of Old Bridge, a young fund house. Its oldest fund, Old Bridge Focused, launched in January 2024; the arbitrage and flexi-cap funds followed in November 2025 and March 2026. He has managed the focused fund since inception. Its 1-year return of 10.86% ranks 2nd of 28 focused funds, against a category median of −1.75%. Its four stars are rated on that single year, because it has no three-year history.

That is all this site can say. His earlier career, at IDFC Asset Management according to his own filing's biography, ran schemes under another fund house, and none of that record carries over to his Old Bridge page. One strong year is not a track record, however familiar the name.

The checklist

1. Open the manager's page and note every scheme they are named on.
2. On each fund page, read the Managing since date on the Fund Managers card.
3. Use only the returns from after that date. Where the fund page's windows don't line up, compare the fund with its category over the matching period.
4. Check whether the fund lists co-managers, and for which asset class.
5. Treat anything under three years as a start, not a record.

Fund managers with the most schemes shows how far some names are stretched across funds, which is worth knowing before crediting one person with a whole house's results.

What the numbers do not tell you

Start dates come from each fund's Scheme Summary Document and can lag a change by weeks. Tenure-period returns here are computed from Direct-plan NAVs; the methodology page explains the rest. A fund's performance is not attributable to one person, and none of this is a recommendation about any fund or manager.