The Hindu Business Line : Income, gilt funds assets fall in June

INCOME and gilt funds saw a marked decrease in assets during June, figures released by AMFI have indicated. Income funds recorded a net outflow of Rs 6,174 crore, while their gilt counterparts witnessed a decline of Rs 270 crore during the month. Not surprisingly, liquid funds ended the month with huge gains - Rs 8,201 crores.

Growth and balanced funds too gained, albeit marginally. The net inflows into these categories were Rs 6 crore and Rs 18 crore respectively. ELSS or the tax-savings schemes reported a net outflow of Rs 12 crore.

Despite the reduction, income funds were still near the top of the charts in terms of assets under management. As on June 30, these funds had as much as Rs 59,431 crore with them - 38 per cent of the Rs 1,55,845 crore handled by the country's mutual funds industry. Liquid & money market funds were a shade better - Rs 63,015 crore or 40 per cent of the total AUM. Growth, gilt and balanced products commanded 14 per cent, four per cent and three per cent respectively. The tax-savers managed only one per cent.

Sales during June by existing income schemes stood at Rs 9,086 crore, while growth schemes recorded sales of Rs 632 crore. There were 125 income schemes in all, including eight in the close-ended category. Among the growth schemes were 128 open-ended products and two close-ended ones. As for Fund of Funds (FOF), there were eight schemes in all, managing Rs 681 crore. An FOF is a scheme wherein the assets are invested in the existing funds.

During the month, five new schemes were launched, AMFI has noted. These included DSP Merrill Lynch India TIGER, Reliance Pharma, Tata Equity P/E and two variants of DSP ML Savings Plus.

UTI, LIC, HDFC, Reliance, Templeton are segment leaders.

UTI MF has retained its status as India's leading fund house, courtesy its AUM of Rs 18,875 crore. The leading players in various groups include LIC MF in the institution-sponsored category (Rs 4,960 crore) and HDFC MF among predominantly Indian JVs (Rs 16,105 crore). Franklin Templeton leads the predominantly foreign JVs with Rs 17,342 crore, while Reliance MF tops the list of Indian private-sector players with Rs 11,204 crore.

The smaller fund houses - all less than Rs 500 crore - include BOB MF (Rs 419 crore), GIC MF (Rs 204 crore), Credit Capital MF (Rs 131 crore), Sahara MF (Rs 345 crore) and Escorts MF (Rs 131 crore).

Benchmark MF closed the month with Rs 78 crore, a tally that makes it the smallest outfit in the industry.