Ashmore’s $2.3 Billion Money Manager Counts On Indian Working Women To Drive Outperformance
Samantha LuanRashi Talwar Bhatia says the growing presence of women in India's workforce reminds her of the feminist movement seen in the US in the 1960s.
Rashi Talwar Bhatia says the growing presence of women in India's workforce reminds her of the feminist movement seen in the US in the 1960s.
For the 49-year-old chief investment officer at Ashmore Investment Management India LLP, the trend also presents a long-term investing opportunity. Buying shares of Indian firms that stand to benefit from higher spending by working women is a key theme in Rashi's portfolio. These include instant grocery and food-delivery platforms as well as makers of home appliances and beauty products.
"I have a certain female gaze on my portfolio," Rashi, who helps oversee about $2.3 billion worth of Indian stocks across several of Ashmore's funds, said in an interview in Mumbai last month. "The use of electronic kitchen equipment is going to increase manifold" and spending on "beauty-care products is going to grow massively. Why? Because women have now gotten money in their own hands," she said.
The Ashmore Sicav India Equity Fund, managed by a team including Rashi, has beaten 96% of its peers so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ashmore's investment approach does not involve having individual fund managers for individual funds.
Shares of four companies — food-delivery firm Swiggy Ltd., beauty retailer FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd., better known as Nykaa, hair-oil manufacturer Marico Ltd., and Electronics Mart India Ltd. — made up about 10% of the fund's total holdings at the end of October.
India, the world's fastest-growing major economy, is witnessing a consumption boom thanks to rising disposable incomes and growing aspirations of its burgeoning middle class. Female participation in the labor force has climbed to 41.7% in 2023-24 from 23.3% six years ago, according to government data. In comparison, women's global labor force participation rate stood at 48.7% in 2023, as per a report from the International Labour Organization.
"If you ask me, India is going through what the US went through in the 60s," Rashi said. "As you see more women entering the workforce, there will be even more demand."
The US feminist movement in the 1960s marked a crucial period for women's rights and social roles in the country, bringing some key legal and cultural changes that also shaped consumption trends. One of them was the signing of the Equal Pay Act by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, which prohibited discrimination in wages on account of sex.
Still, there's no guarantee of a straight march toward gender parity in India. Many companies still treat diversity goals as a branding exercise, and compliance with rules on child-care facilities, maternity protections or safe-transport guidelines is spotty, particularly outside major cities. A large share of Indian women work in informal or home-based roles that offer few protections and no clear path into the corporate jobs that underpin most of the bullish expectations about female-driven consumption.
Surveys show that families continue to discourage women from working after marriage or childbirth, and employers often reinforce the pattern by favoring men for leadership roles or jobs that require travel. In that sense, Rashi's thesis is as much a bet on cultural change as it is on corporate earnings. If participation plateaus, the investment story loses some of its gloss.
The deeply rooted social norms and traditional gender roles that still place the bulk of caregiving and household responsibilities on women in India are a key reason why the world's most populous nation lags many major global peers in this regard. On average, women spend about eight times more time each day on such activities relative to men, according to a 2022 study published by the Observer Research Foundation.
That's where Rashi sees a big opportunity for food and grocery-delivery firms as well as kitchen-equipment makers.
"I don't think any working woman has the luxury of time at this point to go home after work and crush masalas on a silbatta," she said, referring to a traditional Indian stone tool used to grind spices for cooking. "Quick commerce is a huge boon," said the Mumbai-based Ashmore CIO, who started her career 25 years ago as an automobile analyst with Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd.
India's quick commerce market — where online retailers deliver packages in as little as 10 minutes — is expected to balloon to $100 billion in sales by 2035, from about $6 billion in 2024, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. That would make it nearly a fifth of the country's overall e-commerce sales, up from just 5% in 2024.
That said, the pace and intensity of this growth means there are risks investors should watch out for. In some cases, valuations are getting stretched, posing a risk for stock investors, while in other cases, the breakneck expansion pace is weighing on results.
Higher expansion costs saw online ordering platform Swiggy Ltd. report a loss of 10.9 billion rupees ($121 million) for the quarter ended September, a 74% increase from its loss a year earlier. Its stock, which climbed nearly 17% on its debut last November, is currently trading below the issue price.
One of the Ashmore fund's successful bets is FSN, which runs Nykaa, an online platform that sells makeup and skincare products. Up about 60% in 2025, its shares are among the top performers on the NSE Nifty 200 Index.
At about 7% of total retail in 2024, India's e-commerce penetration remains well below China's 32% and the US' 16% as per Redseer, and underscores that the market is at an early stage in its digital consumption journey, Karan Taurani, an analyst at Elara Securities (India) Pvt., wrote in a Nov. 27 report.
Higher disposable income in the hands of Indian women is sure to play its part in this evolution, and Rashi is counting on her bets to help drive outperformance.
"Today, Indian women are more willing to spend on themselves," Rashi said. "These are decadal changes shifting consumption in a massive way."
