Jardine Fleming floats India Bond Fund

Jardine Fleming has returned to the market with a scheme after over a year, as in the interim they wanted to focus on building investors’ confidence. The first scheme that they had launched was the Jardine Fleming Personal Tax Saver’96. This, says UR Bhatt chief investment officer of the fund, has outperformed the benchmark BSE 100 and at Rs 13.47 as on November 11, is among the top two performers of all tax saving schemes for the financial year 1996-97. The investment strategy will be based on a top down approach.

He believes that in today’s market, higher returns may be obtained without significantly higher risk by investing in medium term high quality debt paper.

The fund is not guaranteeing nor indicating any returns. However, according to Bhatt, as per a model portfolio that the fund has worked out, the return could be as high as 14.45 per cent per annum. The scheme also offers benefits under the 54EA and 54EB of the Income Tax Act 1961, by investing long-term capital gains for a fixed period. The minimum subscription amount is Rs 2000, and there will be no tax deducted at source on redemptions, irrespective of the amount redeemed. Mark White, chief executive of Jardine Fleming investment management, Hong Kong, said that there will be more launches this fiscal. In the pipeline are an open ended equity product and a tax savings scheme as well. However, introducing the India Bond Fund as the right product at the right time for India, White said that it makes prudent sense investing in bond funds now.