Axis Asset Management Company has sacked another fund manager, Deepak Agrawal, who was previously suspended along with Joshi after sacking its chief trader and fund manager Viresh Joshi for alleged wrongdoings.
After the decision to suspend him, the employment of Deepak Agrawal Fund Manager with Axis AMC has been terminated with effect from May 20, 2022, and he will no longer have any association with Axis AMC and Axis Mutual Fund. According to a statement issued on Friday, Mr Deepak Agrawal ceases to be a Key Person of Axis AMC.
Agrawal was the seventh-largest fund house in terms of assets under management since 2015 when he joined the mutual fund company as equity research analyst.
Agrawal and Joshi were suspended by Axis AMC on May 6.
The statement issued on May 6 said two fund managers have been suspended pending an investigation of potential irregularities as part of the process.
The sackings come even as global big Alvarez Marsal is conducting a probe at Axis AMC to find out the nature of the wrongdoings.
According to people familiar with the development, the ongoing probe will take at least a month to complete. Since the issue came out in public, various allegations have been making rounds in the market, including front-running and kickbacks.
Agarwal was the fund manager for three schemes - Axis Consumption ETF, Axis Quant Fund and Axis Value Fund - as per data available with Value Research, a mutual fund tracking firm. Joshi was the fund manager of five schemes, including Axis Arbitrage Fund, Axis Banking ETF, Axis Consumption ETF, Axis Nifty ETF and Axis Technology ETF.
The funds have been allocated to other fund managers, including Jinesh Gopani, Head Equity and Ashish Naik, Fund Manager Equity.