The Hindu Business Line : Franklin Templeton fact-sheets provide more info

IN a world where critical information can energise the way you live, fact-sheets of mutual funds containing additional details are always welcome. More so, if investors are able to leverage these details to their advantage.

Check out the fact-sheets issued recently by Franklin Templeton for some of its funds and you will know the difference between these and the ones released earlier. Amidst a cluster of additional data are specifics pertaining to portfolio characteristics, volatility measures and major transactions.

The fact-sheets - for Franklin India Flexi Cap Fund, Franklin India Taxshield and FT India Monthly Income Plan - will be made available on a quarterly basis, the fund house has mentioned. Of particular relevance (especially to the close set of people who track additions to and deletions from portfolios) are a few basic details of significant transactions.

One of the funds, for instance, has talked about the how's & how's of TVS Motors, ABB and Paper Products - stocks that have been added to its portfolio. Similarly, there is reference to IDFC, Concor, Gateway Distiparks; in all these cases, the fund manager has booked profits as target prices were reached.

What may interest a lay investor is the fund's analysis of its essential belief: There are enough opportunities for bottom-up, long-term investors which can provide attractive risk adjusted returns, never mind the high index levels.

For a sound byte from FT, read this: Over the short to medium term, there are quite a few risks (read energy prices, global interest rates/liquidity and the pace of reforms) that could manifest themselves as roadblocks for the Indian markets. From a medium to long-term perspective, we continue to be optimistic about the outlook given the strong fundamentals on the economic and corporate fronts.

The current portfolio and individual holdings, the fund points out, reflect its best investment ideas (on a bottom-up basis) that have the potential to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns over the medium to long term, by benefiting from the broad economic drivers.

What are these drivers? As others will also agree, these include "investments led by corporate India and infrastructure spending, increased consumption driven by positive demographics and global outsourcing".

An ELSS investor may be interested in what FT's tax-saving fund has to offer by way of its increased exposure to mid- and small-cap companies. The fund, incidentally, has added Tata Motors, UB, GSK Consumer and Tata Chem to its basket of stocks. It also exited BPCL, Maharashtra Scooters, Ashok Leyland and Strides Acrolab.

Elsewhere in the asset management industry, the great chase for assets continues with fund houses trying to extract the best from their distributors. Big figures are being bandied about every time a new offer closes for initial subscription.

Taking all collection figures together, a huge amount was raised last month. This included sales recorded by players like SBI MF, UTI MF and HSBC MF. As fund houses point out, there will be more on the NFO front in the days ahead.

Leading fund houses like Pru ICICI MF and Reliance MF are already in the market with NFOs of their own. And with the Union Budget around the corner, investors will have their hands full in the coming weeks.

Feedback may be sent to nilanjan@thehindu.co.in

The key risks for the economy in 2006 would be politics, any spike in oil prices, maintaining adequate domestic liquidity to keep up with credit demand growth and a spurt in interest rates.

ING Vysya MF

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