The Hindu Business Line : Reliance MF displaces UTI as largest fund house

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Kolkata Feb. 2 Reliance Mutual Fund has emerged as the country's largest fund house, displacing UTI Mutual Fund from its No 1 position at the end of January. Reliance MF topped the charts with Rs 39,019 crore, clearly more than what the public-sector outfit managed — Rs 37,535 crore.

Occupying the third and fourth slots are Prudential ICICI MF and HDFC MF, which had Rs 34,745 crore and Rs 31,424 crore respectively. Seen in the context of their December 2006 assets, both have maintained their positions.

The pecking order in the asset management industry in December was in favour of UTI MF, which had Rs 38,108 crore under management. Reliance MF, the then No 2, had 36,927 crore. Pru ICICI MF and HDFC MF followed with Rs 33,304 croreand Rs 29,635 crorerespectively. These figures, released by Association of Mutual Funds in India, do not cover assets managed by FoFs (fund of funds).

The industry closed the month with Rs 3.41 lakh crore, of which FoFs accounted for Rs 2,539 crore. This is higher than what fund houses managed at the end of calendar 2006 — Rs 3.23 lakh crore in all. Of this, FoFs made up Rs 2,294 crore.

For UTI MF, the kitty has been shrinking if the end-November tally is considered. It had then topped the league tables with as much as Rs 41,622 crore. Reliance MF, which had Rs 34,636 crore, was actually the third-largest player.

Considering the latest scores, the list of prominent fund houses includes Franklin Templeton MF (Rs 23,907 crore), Birla Sun Life (Rs 21,189 crore) and SBI MF (Rs 17,522 crore). While Franklin Templeton MF has more or less maintained its asset base (end-December: Rs 23,403 crore), the other two have substantially added to their kitty. Birla MF and SBI MF had Rs 17,054 crore and Rs 15,086 crore respectively at the end of December last year.

Among the smallest players in the industry are Quantum MF (Rs 59 crore), BOB MF (Rs 118 crore), Sahara MF (Rs 180 crore) and newcomer Lotus India MF (Rs 647 crore). Some of the other fund houses, each with less than Rs 5,000 crore under management, are Canbank MF, DBS Chola MF, ING Vysya and Morgan Stanley MF. The latter has just one fund to offer.

StanChart MF, which UBS Global Asset Management has recently agreed to acquire in India, closed January with Rs 12,745 crore, marginally higher than Rs 12,624 crore it had in end-December. Its November tally stood at Rs 12,894 crore.

AUM doubles

For two years in a row, Reliance MF has managed to more than double its asset size, AMFI's figures pertaining to the 2005-2007 period indicate.

The fund house, which had Rs 39,019 crore in January this year, managed less than half of this a year ago: Rs 16,701 crore. This in turn was just about double the January 2005 figure of Rs 8,159 crore.

The last two years have seen Reliance MF launch a number of new funds, including a few equity products. Some of these have grown substantially larger in recent months.