The stock market has been volatile in the past couple of months, but the mutual fund industry continues to scale new highs. In August, the last month for which data is available, average assets under management (AUM) of mutual funds rose to an all time high of Rs 25.2 lakh crore, show numbers from the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI). Maharashtra continues to be the state with the maximum penetration and assets under management, in line with it being one of the richest states in the country. In August, average assets under management from Maharashtra touched Rs 10.35 lakh crore, about 41.1 per cent of the all-India total. Maharashtra was followed by Delhi, which boasted of assets worth Rs 2.35 lakh crore that is being managed by the mutual fund industry. Karnataka with Rs 1.76 lakh crore, Gujarat with Rs 1.62 lakh crore and West Bengal with Rs 1.29 lakh crore make up the top five. Haryana with Rs 1.14 lakh crore and Tamil Nadu with Rs 1.16 lakh crore were the only other states with more than Rs 1 lakh crore of AUM. Uttar Pradesh just fell short of the mark with Rs 96,200 crore. The percentage of assets with an equity component (i.e. pure equity schemes and balanced scheme) was just 31 per cent in Maharashtra’s AUM, little change since the beginning of the year. However, that is less than the all-India average of 40 per cent. The usual explanation for this is that Maharashtra is home to many big corporates who park a lot of their surplus funds in short-term, debt-oriented mutual funds. The major states with the highest proportion of assets with equity component are Bihar with 73 per cent, Gujarat with 52 per cent equity component percentage. States like Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala had equity weightages of 71 and 69 per cent, respectively. Mutual fund penetration as measured by per capital asset under management was the highest in Delhi. It had Rs 1.40 lakh AUM per capita at the end of August. It was followed by Goa with Rs 1.13 lakh and Maharashtra with Rs 92,160 AUM per capita.
