The Hindu Business Line : Birla India GenNext: A fancy for media

Birla India GenNext is a theme-based fund that seeks to benefit from the country's rising consumption pattern. The fund aims at investing in companies which manufacture products or render services that directly reach the consumer.

While the fund continues to stand by its consumption theme, its exposure to sectors and stocks has undergone quite a bit of change since its inception in August 2005. We take a look at the shuffle in the portfolio over the three months from December 2006 to February 2007.

In the above period, the fund reduced its exposure to consumer non-durables and instead increased holdings in media and entertainment. The volatile market appeared to have prompted the fund to increase its holding in cash, which increased from 5 per cent in November 2006 to about 14 per cent in January. FMCG major Hindustan Lever lost favour and took the exit route. The fund also sold Asian Paints, which was among its top five holdings.

The outlook on banking appeared unchanged as it continued to hold most of the stocks it did three months ago. Karnataka Bank was the only stock sold. The fund, however maintained exposure to the sector by adding Federal Bank. Media and entertainment, which is likely to be a key beneficiary of consumer spending, appears to have caught the fund's fancy. With the sector also gaining ground in the listed space, the company has added a few media stocks to its portfolio.

The fund took fresh exposure to Sun TV, while increasing the shares held in NDTV by over 40 per cent. The fund's optimism in HT Media was reflected in the five-fold increase in the number of shares it held in the company. Inox Leisure and Jagran Prakashan were, however, sold. Both the stocks had been languishing in terms of returns during the holding period.

While housing and construction may be classified as one of the sectors benefiting from the consumption boom, Birla GenNext has preferred to a maintain low exposure in this sector. Over the above period, the fund replaced Parsvnath Developers with Sobha Developers and continued to hold only one stock in this space.

In the automobile sector, Mahindra & Mahindra was sold, while holdings in Maruti Udyog were augmented.

Vidya Bala

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