MF assets soar to Rs 51,000 cr

During the period, the corpus of growth funds (equity schemes) stood at Rs 21,869 crore up Rs 80 per cent or Rs 9,688 crore as against the corpus of Rs 12,181 crore as on June 2003.

During the period, though the broader BSE-500 index soared over 40 per cent, the contribution from equity dedicated mutual funds in terms of fresh inflows was not very major. Whatever growth was seen in the equity schemes was mainly on account of the sharp jump witnessed in the prices of select stocks. Meanwhile, the AUM of balanced schemes was up Rs 979 crore or 29 per cent to Rs 4,382 crore during the period.

Among the sector specific schemes, income funds bucked the trend. The corpus of income funds during the year to June 2004 fell by 6 per cent or Rs 3,440 crore to Rs 59,431 crore compared with Rs 62,871 crore as on June 2003.

Said A.K. Sridhar, CIO, UTI MF: ‘‘The growth in the last one year was mainly witnessed in liquid schemes of mutual funds and more recently the monthly income plans (MIPs). The share of institutions in liquid funds during this period was the major contributor to the surge in the AUM of MFs’’.

‘‘The contribution of equity schemes during this period was not much, whatever growth was seen in equity dedicated schemes was mainly on account of rising stock prices,’’ Sridhar added.

Naval Bir Kumar, managing director, Standard Chartered MF, said: ‘‘With interest rates looking up in the last six months or so, investors preferred to park their money in liquid funds instead of income funds’’.

Among the mutual funds which contributed to the AUM surge in a big way was Reliance Capital Asset Management Company, which added Rs 7,338 crore — or 190 per cent — to Rs 11,204 crore in a period of one year from Rs 3,866 crore. The corpus of Standard Chartered MF rose to Rs 9,444 crore from Rs 5,991 crore, while that of HDFC AMC moved up to Rs 16,105 crore from Rs 11,961 crore.