Mutual funds’ asset base swells to record ₹14-lakh cr

Assets under management of mutual funds jumped 15 per cent in April to record ₹14.22 lakh crore. According to Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) data, MFs had an average AUM of ₹12.33 lakh crore at the end of March.

The previous record for the MF industry was in October 2015, when it had an asset base of ₹13.24 lakh crore.

The asset base of equity funds swelled to ₹3.56 lakh crore in April from ₹3.27 lakh crore in March, a growh of 8.7 per cent. During this period, the S&P BSE Sensex and the NSE’s Nifty 50 gained just about 1 per cent.

Recently, a Crisil study said MF folios rose by a record 14 per cent in the year ended March 31, on account of growing retail investors’ interest in equity and equity-oriented schemes.

Mutual funds added about 59 lakh folios in FY16 to reach a total of 4.77 crore folios. A folio is a unique number allotted to an individual investor by an asset management company for investing in a particular fund.

The monthly rise in asset base was mainly due to the inflows in liquid or money market category. While the asset base of income funds rose from ₹4.08 lakh crore to ₹4.45 lakh crore, the liquid funds saw its AUM rising almost 70 per cent to ₹3.37 lakh crore from ₹1.99 lakh crore.

After witnessing heavy redemptions in March on account of tax commitments, funds reverted to these schemes.

Overall, fresh flows to mutual fund schemes stood at ₹1.7 lakh crore at the end of April, compared to an outflow of ₹73,113 crore at March-end. Of this, money market schemes witnessed an inflow of ₹1.34 lakh crore while the equity segment gathered fresh amount of ₹4,042 crore.

Gold ETFs witnessed only a marginal increase in their AUM in April. Their asset base saw an increase of ₹134 crore or just 2 per cent in April at ₹6,480 crore (₹6,346 crore).

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