The Hindu Business Line : UTI Mutual Fund targets 20 pc growth

The fund house is in the process of rationalising its existing funds to reduce duplication. It also has plans to roll out new products such as a Gold Exchange Traded Fund.

Speaking to Business Line at the opening of two new offices in Chennai on Saturday, Mr D.S.R. Murthy, Executive Director of UTI AMC, said that UTI Mutual Fund had ambitious plans to grow its asset base within the industry.

He said the mutual fund had grown its assets by about 80 per cent since the sub-division of UTI into two entities in February 2003. It had managed to improve its market share from 12 to about 13 per cent now.

Mr Murthy said that UTI MF had already designed a gold exchange traded fund, which would be launched as soon as detailed guidelines were framed by the regulators. The fund is structured in such a way that retail investors will be able to exchange gold (either in bar or ornament form), for an equivalent value of units. A custodian or banker would accept the gold on behalf of the AMC and hold it until redemption.

The fund house is also in the process of rationalising its existing basket of products. The Mastergain Unit Scheme 1992 has recently been renamed as UTI Equity Fund. The fund has also recently merged five existing funds — Primary Equity Fund, Unit Scheme 92, Master Equity Plan 1998, Master Equity Plan 1999 and Grandmaster Unit Scheme, into a single fund — the UTI Opportunities Fund. The latter will take focused exposure in 4-5 sectors at a time. Over 95 per cent of the investors in the five funds had already opted to move to UTI Opportunities Fund.

Explaining the rationale for the merger, Mr Murthy said the merger was conceived because managing many funds with similar names was creating confusion in the minds of investors. "We felt the need to have a clearly defined flagship fund. We chose UTI Mastergain because it is one of our biggest funds with a good record over the past three years," he said.

UTI Mastershare did not fit the bill as well, because of its tradition of making dividend payouts every year, he added.

The fund also has ambitious plans for expanding the distribution network by doubling the number of its financial centres over the next year. After opening three new centers at Chennai, the fund now has 63 full-fledged financial centers. A tie-up with India Post to vend UTI Funds was also showing good results, Mr Murthy said.

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