It’s not every day that a Kolkata-based company can expect to have managers of a Rs 70,440-crore fund come calling to check out investment opportunities. Over the past two days, at least 15 such companies had the good luck.

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group-owned Reliance Mutual Fund, one of the fastest growing mutual fund houses in the country with over Rs 70,000 crore of assets under management, is currently on a fact-finding mission here. Top officials have been meeting the bosses of a handful of corporate houses who have it in them to make it big and rank among the best of their peers in the country if not in Asia.

Reliance MF’s senior fund manager Sunil Singhania has met around 15 city-based corporate houses till Friday evening in search of investment opportunities in West Bengal, hitherto no-man’s land when it came to financial investment.

While Singhania has been doing the fact-finding mission, Anil Ambani’s high-profile investment strategist Madhusudan Kela is also here to get a feel of the state’s investment scenario.

On Thursday, Kela met Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at a hotel where the chief minister signed two memorandums of agreement with Venugopal Dhoot and the Jai Balaji Group. Kela reportedly came at the insistence of Dhoot to seek opportunities as financial investors to various projects that are coming up in West Bengal.

“Over the last two days, we have met the management of close to 15 corporate houses in Kolkata. The effort is part of our strategy to keep on scouting for investment opportunities,” Singhania told FE.

While he declined to disclose the name of the corporate bosses, Singhania said he meet officials of Emami, an emerging and innovative FMCG company.

According to Singhania, the chief minister as well as the state’s industrialists have undergone a transformation.

“Yesterday I was listening to Budhababu and he didn’t sound like a communist,” Singhania was heard telling members of FICCI Ladies Organisation. “The Kolkata ‘babus’ are also changing: five years back it was difficult to get in touch with them during noon when they were invariably having their siesta back home. They are now toiling 16 hours a day,” Singhania told the ladies.

Beyond Bengal, Singhania is bullish on the economy and the long-term prospect of the stock market. “India saves ten lakh crore in a year out of which if even 5% is invested in equities, three lakh crore will then come into the share market, and this will take the Indian market to higher levels,” he said.

“If the growth rates is steady at 7-9% and the company’s profit ranges between 15-20%, the equity market will be stronger then,” Singhania said.