It may be recalled that the Italian banking group, UniCredito Italiano Group, has proposed to acquire the investment business of The Pioneer Group Inc (PGI), the parent company of Pioneer Investment Management and one of the sponsors of Kothari Pioneer AMC Ltd.

The proposed acquisition is subject to the approval of various overseas regulatory authorities. But in India the change in the sponsor has been approved by the trustees of Kothari Pioneer AMC. The Securities and Exchange Board of India also has conveyed its no objection to such a changeover. The mutual fund regulations stipulate that the fund should inform the unitholders of the change in the sponsor and also offer them an option to exit without any load. The objective of this exercise is to give those unitholders a chance to exit in case they are not comfortable with the new sponsor. UniCredito group, based in Milan, Italy, has over $ 150 billion in assets with over 3,500 branches and serves five million customers. It has reported net earnings of $ 1.2 billion and return of equity of over 20 per cent for the year 1999. UniCredito's asset management subsidiary, EuroPlus is one of the fastest growing fund managers in Europe. It currently manages 90 non-US mutual funds and has approximately $ 80 billion inassets under its management.

Kothari Pioneer Mutual Fund is India's first private sector mutual fund and assets under its management is in excess of Rs 2,500 crore with over 6.60 lakh investors.

It has a well diversified basket of schemes in debt and equity segments with sector specific schemes such as Infotech, pharma, FMCG and Internet opportunities funds.