Lamborghini blows lid off Rs 1k-cr insider scandal?

New Delhi: A Lamborghini seems to have blown the lid of a huge front-running scandal in a private sector mutual fund.

There are now loud whispers of a Rs 1,000 crore scam in a large mutual fund owned by a leading private sector bank involving front-running by the fund managers and dealers. Front-running is trading stocks or any asset based on insider knowledge of a future transaction that will affect its price, which is illegal. The said fund manager seems to have been using a Lamborghini and buying luxury apartments in and around Mumbai. He is said to be on the payrolls of brokers and accumulated small and midcap stocks on behalf of the mutual fund.

Axis Mutual Fund has carried out changes in fund manager responsibilities with effect from May 4 and Viresh Joshi, who was handling Axis Arbitrage Fund, Axis Banking ETF, Axis Consumption ETF, Axis Nifty ETF and Axis Technology ETF, does not find a mention in the new responsibilities. Deepak Agarwal also does not find mention in the new structure. As per Twitter comments, there is a speculation that these two have been fired from the fund.

The same comments suggest that Joshi made Rs 500 crore and owned 14 apartments around Mumbai. He was said to be instrumental in buying small and mid-cap stocks and boosting them to place with the mutual fund once they crossed a certain size threshold. There is also a talk that this may be rampant in the Indian mutual fund industry and what some said on Twitter was an industry practice. It is learnt that the CEO, Chandresh Nigam, is also under fire for overlooking these practices. Some of the holdings of the fund may face pressure in the markets as buzz spreads around this scandal.