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Project Report

On
Study on Mutual Fund
Industry in India

In partial fulfillment of the requirement of MBA


Programme of Amity Directorate of Distance & Online
Education, Noida (U.P)
Submitted by:
VINOD KUMAR

Enroll: A19201160165
Programme: MBA 2years

Under The Guidance Of


Anil Chauhan
Team Leader in Documentation
Alpine Apparels Pvt. Ltd.
Faridabad, Haryana
CONTENTS
SL NO. CHAPTER PARTICULARS PAGE NO.

1 --- Certificate-I 3

2 --- Certificate II 4

3 --- Acknowledgement 5

4 1 Introduction 6 - 61

5 2 Objective & Scope 62 - 64

6 3 Methodology 65 - 67

9 4 Finding 68 - 69

10 5 Recommendations 70 - 71

13 --- Bibliography 72 - 73
CERTIFICATE-I

This is to certify that the Project work entitled "Study on Mutual Fund Industry in India" is a record of
bonafide work carried out by under my supervision towards partial fulfillment of the Management
Programme course (MBA) of the Amity University of Distance Learning, Noida (UP).

Place : Gurgaon Signature


Date: 04-09-2017
Anil Chauhan

Team Leader in Documentation

Alpine Apparels Pvt Ltd., FBD ( HR)


CERTIFICATE-II

I, Vinod Kumar certify that the project report entitled Study on Mutual Fund Industry in India" is an original
one and has not been submitted earlier either to Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida (U.P) or to any
other institution for fulfillment of the requirement of a course of management programme (MBA).

Place :Gurgaon
Signature
Date: 04-09-2017
VINOD KUMAR

Enroll: A19201160165

Programme: MBA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity as a platform to thank various individuals, without the
support of whom, this project would not have been successful. I would like to express my
heartfelt gratitude and thanks to Anil Chauhan for his guidance and support throughout this
study.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the respondents who trusted me and gave me
their valuable insight. I have put in my best efforts to make this project as informative and
understandable as possible. Every effort has been made to enhance the quality of work.
However, I owe the sole responsibility of the shortcomings.

Vinod Kumar
Chapter 1

Introduction
Mutual Fund Industry in India

A mutual fund is an entity that pools the money of many investors -- its unit-
holders -- to invest in different securities. Investments may be in shares, debt
securities, money market securities or a combination of these. Those securities
are professionally managed on behalf of the unit-holders, and each investor
holds a pro-rata share of the portfolio i.e. entitled to any profits when the
securities are sold, but subject to any losses in value as well.
A mutual fund is a trust that pools the savings of a number of investors who share
a common financial goal and investments may be in shares, debt securities,
money-market securities or a combination of these. Those securities are
professionally managed on behalf of the unit holders and each investor holds a
pro-rata share of the portfolio, that is, entitled to profits as well as losses.
Income earned through these investments and the capital appreciation realized is
shared by its unit holders in proportion to the number of units owned by them. A
mutual fund is the most suitable investment scope for common people as it offers
an opportunity to invest in a diversified, professionally managed basket of
securities at a relatively lower cost.

The flow chart below describes broadly the working of a Mutual fund:
The first introduction of a mutual fund in India occurred in 1963, when
the Government of India launched Unit Trust of India (UTI). Until 1987, UTI
enjoyed a monopoly in the Indian mutual fund market. Then a host of other
government-controlled Indian financial companies came up with their own funds.
These included State Bank of India, Canara Bank, and Punjab National Bank. In
1996, SEBI formulated the Mutual Fund Regulation which is a comprehensive
regulatory framework.

Mutual Fund market provides vast investment avenues for the prospective
investors ranging from bonds to bank deposits and corporate debentures, which
are low on risk and high on returns. The latest mutual fund market has indicated
bearish trend which means that investors who are seeking for profitable
investments should opt for highly skilled fund managers who invests on their
behalf..

Mutual fund investments are sourced both from institutions (companies) and
individuals. Since January 2013, institutional investors have moved to investing
directly with the mutual funds since doing so saves on the expense ratio incurred.
Individual investors are, however, served mostly by Investment advisor and
banks. Since 2009, online platforms for investing in Mutual funds have also
evolved.
History of the Indian Mutual Fund Industry

The mutual fund industry in India started in 1963 with the formation of Unit Trust of India, at
the initiative of the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India. In the last few years the MF
Industry has grown significantly. The history of Mutual Funds in India can be broadly divided
into six distinct phases as follows:

Phase I (1964-87): Growth Of UTI:

In 1963, UTI was established by an Act of Parliament. As it was the only entity offering mutual
funds in India, it had a monopoly. Operationally, UTI was set up by the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI), but was later delinked from the RBI. The first scheme, and for long one of the largest
launched by UTI, was Unit Scheme 1964.

Later in the 1970s and 80s, UTI started innovating and offering different schemes to suit the
needs of different classes of investors. Unit Linked Insurance Plan (ULIP) was launched in 1971.
The first Indian offshore fund, India Fund was launched in August 1986. In absolute terms, the
investible funds corpus of UTI was about Rs 600 crores in 1984. By 1987-88, the assets under
management (AUM) of UTI had grown 10 times to Rs 6,700 crores.

Phase II (1987-93): Entry of Public Sector Funds:

The year 1987 marked the entry of other public sector mutual funds. With the opening up of
the economy, many public sector banks and institutions were allowed to establish mutual
funds. The State Bank of India established the first non-UTI Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund in
November 1987. This was followed by Canbank Mutual Fund,LIC Mutual Fund, Indian Bank
Mutual Fund, Bank of India Mutual Fund, GIC Mutual Fund and PNB Mutual Fund. From 1987-
88 to 1992-93, the AUM increased from Rs 6,700 crores to Rs 47,004 crores, nearly seven times.
During this period, investors showed a marked interest in mutual funds, allocating a larger part
of their savings to investments in the funds.

Phase III (1993-96): Emergence of Private Funds:

A new era in the mutual fund industry began in 1993 with the permission granted for the entry
of private sector funds. This gave the Indian investors a broader choice of 'fund families' and
increasing competition to the existing public sector funds. Quite significantly foreign fund
management companies were also allowed to operate mutual funds, most of them coming into
India through their joint ventures with Indian promoters.

The private funds have brought in with them latest product innovations, investment
management techniques and investor-servicing technologies. During the year 1993-94, five
private sector fund houses launched their schemes followed by six others in 1994-95.

Phase IV (1996-99): Growth And SEBI Regulation:

Since 1996, the mutual fund industry scaled newer heights in terms of mobilization of funds and
number of players. Deregulation and liberalization of the Indian economy had introduced
competition and provided impetus to the growth of the industry.

A comprehensive set of regulations for all mutual funds operating in India was introduced with
SEBI (Mutual Fund) Regulations, 1996. These regulations set uniform standards for all funds.
Erstwhile UTI voluntarily adopted SEBI guidelines for its new schemes. Similarly, the budget of
the Union government in 1999 took a big step in exempting all mutual fund dividends from
income tax in the hands of the investors. During this phase, both SEBI and Association of
Mutual Funds of India (AMFI) launched Investor Awareness Programme aimed at educating the
investors about investing through MFs.

Phase V (1999-2004): Emergence of a Large and Uniform Industry:


The year 1999 marked the beginning of a new phase in the history of the mutual fund industry
in India, a phase of significant growth in terms of both amount mobilized from investors and
assets under management. In February 2003, the UTI Act was repealed. UTI no longer has a
special legal status as a trust established by an act of Parliament. Instead it has adopted the
same structure as any other fund in India - a trust and an AMC.

UTI Mutual Fund is the present name of the erstwhile Unit Trust of India (UTI). While UTI
functioned under a separate law of the Indian Parliament earlier, UTI Mutual Fund is now under
the SEBI's (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996 like all other mutual funds in India.

The emergence of a uniform industry with the same structure, operations and regulations make
it easier for distributors and investors to deal with any fund house. Between 1999 and 2005 the
size of the industry has doubled in terms of AUM which have gone from above Rs 68,000 crores
to over Rs 1,50,000 crores.

Phase VI (From 2004 Onwards): Consolidation and Growth:

The industry has lately witnessed a spate of mergers and acquisitions, most recent ones being
the acquisition of schemes of Allianz Mutual Fund by Birla Sun Life, PNB Mutual Fund by
Principal, among others. At the same time, more international players continue to enter India
including Fidelity, one of the largest funds in the world.

Taking cognisance of the lack of penetration of MFs, especially in tier II and tier III cities, and the
need for greater alignment of the interest of various stakeholders, SEBI introduced several
progressive measures in September 2012 to "re-energize" the Indian Mutual Fund industry and
increase MFs penetration.

In due course, the measures did succeed in reversing the negative trend that had set in after
the global melt-down and improved significantly after the new Government was formed at the
Center.
Since May 2014, the Industry has witnessed steady inflows and increase in the AUM as well as
the number of investor folios (accounts).

The Industrys AUM crossed the milestone of 10 Trillion (10 Lakh Crore) for the first
time as on 31st May 2014 and in a short span of two years the AUM size has crossed 15
lakh crore in July 2016.
The overall size of the Indian MF Industry has grown from 3.26 trillion as on 31st
March 2007 to 15.63 trillion as on 31st August 2016, the highest AUM ever and a five-
fold increase in a span of less than 10 years !!
In fact, the MF Industry has more doubled its AUM in the last 4 years from 5.87
trillion as on 31st March, 2012 to 12.33 trillion as on 31st March, 2016 and further
grown to 15.63 trillion as on 31st August 2016.
The no. of investor folios has gone up from 3.95 crore folios as on 31-03-2014 to 4.98
crore as on 31-08-2016.
On an average 3.38 lakh new folios are added every month in the last 2 years since Jun
2014.

The growth in the size of the Industry has been possible due to the twin effects of the
regulatory measures taken by SEBI in re-energizing the MF Industry in September 2012 and the
support from mutual fund distributors in expanding the retail base.

MF Distributors have been providing the much needed last mile connect with investors,
particularly in smaller towns and this is not limited to just enabling investors to invest in
appropriate schemes, but also in helping investors stay on course through bouts of market
volatility and thus experience the benefit of investing in mutual funds.

In fact, even though FY 2015-16 was not a very good year for the Indian securities market, the
MF Industry witnessed steady positive net inflows month after month, even when the FIIs were
pulling out in a big way. This was largely because of the hand-holding of the investors by the
MF distributors and convincing them to stay invested and/or invest at lower NAVs when the
market had fallen.

MF distributors have also had a major role in popularizing Systematic Investment Plans (SIP)
over the years. In April 2016, the no. of SIP accounts has crossed 1 crore mark and currently
each month retail investors contribute around 3,500 crore via SIPs.

The graph indicates the growth of assets over the last 10 years.
Average Assets Under Management (AAUM) for the quarter of January - March 2017 (Rs in Lakhs)

Average AUM

Excluding Fund of
Sr No Mutual Fund Name Funds - Domestic but
Fund Of Funds - Domestic
including Fund of
Funds - Overseas

1 Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund 19504900.94 28210.12

2 Axis Mutual Fund 5769984.77 6480.53

3 Baroda Pioneer Mutual Fund 1032365.21 0

4 BNP Paribas Mutual Fund 589089.71 0

5 BOI AXA Mutual Fund 355233.50 0

6 Canara Robeco Mutual Fund 993978.39 5641.69

7 DHFL Pramerica Mutual Fund 2611695.74 0

8 DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund 6417678.51 102236.15

9 Edelweiss Mutual Fund 691754.97 0

10 Escorts Mutual Fund 24256.32 0

11 Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund 8161533.53 91858.66

12 HDFC Mutual Fund 23717761.00 28929.98

13 HSBC Mutual Fund 881236.20 68080.91

14 ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund 24296130.61 18260.75

15 IDBI Mutual Fund 771895.37 4437.38

16 IDFC Mutual Fund 6063601.55 23999.79

17 IIFCL Mutual Fund (IDF) 41236.92 0

18 IIFL Mutual Fund 56470.88 0

19 IL&FS Mutual Fund (IDF) 101978.78 0


20 Indiabulls Mutual Fund 1081973.78 0

21 Invesco Mutual Fund 2352793.44 1618.95

22 JM Financial Mutual Fund 1366793.70 0

23 Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund 9221628.17 22392.35

24 L&T Mutual Fund 3929988.78 0

25 LIC Mutual Fund 2147529.64 0

26 Mahindra Mutual Fund 199515.94 0

27 Mirae Asset Mutual Fund 745666.77 0

28 Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund 811510.43 0

29 Peerless Mutual Fund 106186.57 0

30 PPFAS Mutual Fund 69612.32 0

31 PRINCIPAL Mutual Fund 534683.87 760.08

32 Quantum Mutual Fund 96185.21 3394.78

33 Reliance Mutual Fund 21089063.82 84765.94

34 Sahara Mutual Fund 6726.89 0

35 SBI Mutual Fund 15702527.68 46458.05

36 Shriram Mutual Fund 4055.82 0

37 SREI Mutual Fund (IDF) 0 0

38 Sundaram Mutual Fund 2936968.94 0

39 Tata Mutual Fund 4261916.24 0

40 Taurus Mutual Fund 187607.06 0

41 Union Mutual Fund 341622.95 0

42 UTI Mutual Fund 13681008.91 0

Grand Total 182958349.83 537526.11


Concept Of Mutual Fund:

A Mutual Fund is a trust that pools the savings of a number of investors who
share a common financial goal. The money thus collected is then invested in
capital market instruments such as shares, debentures and other securities. The
income earned through these investments and the capital appreciation realised
are shared by its unit holders in proportion to the number of units owned by
them. Thus a Mutual Fund is the most suitable investment for the common man
as it offers an opportunity to invest in a diversified, professionally managed
basket of securities at a relatively low cost. The flow chart below describes
broadly the working of a mutual fund:

As the name suggests, a 'mutual fund' is an investment vehicle that allows several
investors to pool their resources in order to purchase stocks, bonds and other
securities.
Benefits Of Mutual Funds:

Mutual funds have been endowed with many advantages over other forms and
avenues of investment. Especially, investors having limited resources in terms of
capital and ability to carry out detailed research and market monitoring, reward
many benefits from these. Major advantages are listed below:

1 >Professional Management:

One of the most important benefits of the mutual fund investment is the
availability of highly professional management services. Mutual funds are
managed by professionally experienced and highly skilled managers, backed by a
dedicated investment research team with sound knowledge of the market and
wide experience in investment. Making investment is not a full time assignment
for investors. So they cannot have a professional attitude towards it. The
professional fund managers, who supervise the funds portfolio, take desirable
decisions as which securities to be bought and sold and decisions for the timing of
such buy and sell. They have extensive research facilities at their disposal to
investigate and constantly supervise the fund. The performance of mutual fund
schemes depends on the quality of fund managers employed.

2 >Convenient Administration:
Mutual Funds save time and make investing easy and convenient as investing in a
Mutual Fund scheme reduces paperwork and helps to avoid many Problems such
as bad deliveries, delayed payments and unnecessary follow up with brokers and
companies.

3 >Return Potential:

Over a medium to long term, mutual funds have the potential to provide a high
return as they invest in a diversified basket of selected securities.

4 >Low Costs:

Mutual Funds are a relatively less expensive mode of investment as compared to


directly investing in the capital markets because of the benefits of scale in
brokerage, custodial and other fees.

5 >Liquidity:

Liquidity is a distinct advantage of mutual funds over other investment options as


there is always a market for its units. For open-ended schemes, investors canal
ways approach the fund for repurchase and get their money back promptly at Net
Asset Value (NAV) related prices. With close-ended schemes, they can sell their
units on a stock exchange at the prevailing market price or avail the facility of
repurchase through Mutual Funds at NAV related prices which some close-ended
and interval schemes offer to the investors periodically.

6 >Transparency:
Investors get regular information on the value of their investment in addition to
disclosure on the specific investments made by the scheme, the proportion
Invested in each class of assets and the fund managers investment strategy and
outlook.

7 >Flexibility:

Through features such as Systematic Investment Plans (SIP), Systematic


Withdrawal Plans (SWP) and dividend reinvestment plans, one can systematically
invest or Withdraw funds according to his requirements and expediency.

8 >Switching:

Many mutual funds allow investors to switch from one fund to another.

For example, if investors objective changes from capital gains to income, they can
switch from growth to income funds and vice versa.

ORGANISATION OF MUTUAL FUNDS

In accordance with the provisions of the Indian Trust Act, 1882 every mutual fund
shall be constituted in the form of a trust. SEBI Guidelines, 1992 spell out in clear
terms the establishment norms for mutual funds. It contemplated a three tier
system for managing the affairs of mutual funds. The three constituents are the
sponsoring company, the trustees and the assets management company (AMC).
These three constituents were incorporated in SEBI Regulations, 1996 for the
management of mutual funds. Apart from these three, Custodians and transfer
agents are two more important constituents of mutual funds.

i. SPONSOR

Sponsor of a mutual fund is akin to the promoter of a company as he gets the


fund registered with SEBI. Under SEBI regulations, sponsor is defined as any
person who acting alone or in combination with another body corporate
establishes the mutual fund. Sponsor can be Indian companies, banks or financial
institutions, foreign entities or a joint venture between two entities. As Reliance
mutual fund has been sponsored fully by an Indian entity. Whereas, funds like
Fidelity mutual fund and J P Morgan mutual fund are sponsored fully by foreign
entities. ICICI Prudential mutual fund has been set up as a joint venture between
ICICI Bank and Prudential plc. Both sponsors have contributed to the capital of the
Asset Management Company of ICICI Prudential. SEBI has laid down the eligibility
criteria for sponsor as it should have a sound track record and at least five years
experience in the financial services industry. SEBI ensures that sponsor should
have professional competence, financial soundness and general reputation of
fairness and integrity in business transactions. At least 40 percent of the capital of
AMC has to be contributed by the sponsor. Also, they identify and appoint the
trustees and Asset Management Company. Sponsors are also free to get
incorporated an AMC as well as to appoint a board of trustees. They, either
directly or acting through trustees, will appoint a custodian to hold the fund
assets. To submit trust deed and draft of memorandum and articles of association
of AMC to SEBI is also a duty of sponsor. After the mutual fund is registered,
sponsors technically take a backseat.

ii. TRUSTEES

Under the Indian trust act 1882, a sponsor creates mutual fund trust, which is the
main body in creation of mutual funds. Trustees may be appointed as an
individual or as a trustee company with the prior approval of SEBI. As defined
under the SEBI regulations, 1996, trustees mean board of trustees or Trustee
Company who hold the property of mutual fund for the benefit of the unit
holders. A Trustee acts as the protectors of the unit holders interests and is the
primary guardians of the unit holders funds and assets. Sponsor executes and
registers a trust deed in favour of trustees. There must be at least 4 members in
the board of trustees and least two third of them need to be independent. For
example, HDFC Trustee Company Limited is the Trustee of HDFC Mutual Fund vide
the Trust deed dated June 8,2000. It has five board members, of whom three are
independent. To ensure fair dealings, mutual fund regulations require that trustee
of one mutual fund cannot be a trustee of another one, unless he is an
independent trustee in both the cases, and has approval of both the boards. AMC,
its directors or employees shall not act as trustees of any mutual fund. Trustees
must be the person with experience in financial services and every trustee should
be a person of integrity, ability and standing. SEBI has also defined the rights and
obligations of trustees. Under their rights, trustees appoint AMC with the prior
approval of SEBI. They approve each of the schemes floated by AMC in
consultation with the sponsors. They have the right to obtain from the AMC, such
information as they consider necessary to fulfill their obligations. Trustees can
even dismiss AMC with the approval of the SEBI and in accordance with the
regulations. Under their obligations, trustees must ensure that the transactions of
mutual funds are in accordance with the trust deed and its activities are in
compliance with SEBI regulations. They must ensure that AMC has all the
procedures and systems in place, and that all the fund constituents are
appointed. Also, they must ensure due diligence on the part of AMC in the
appointment of business associates and constituents. Trustees must furnish to
SEBI, on half-yearly basis a report on the activities of the AMC.

iii. ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY (AMC)

Asset Management Company is the body engaged to run the show of a mutual
fund. The sponsor or trustees appoint AMC to manage the affairs of the mutual to
ensure efficient management. SEBI desires that AMC must have a sound track
record in terms of net worth, dividend paying capacity, profitability, general
reputation and fairness in transactions. AMC is involved in basically three
activities as portfolio management, investment analysis and financial
administration. Therefore, the directors of AMC should be expert in these fields.
SEBIs regulation for AMC requires that it should have a net worth of at least Rs.
10 crore at all times and that a company can act as an AMC of one mutual fund
only. Also, at least 50percent of the members of the board of an AMC have to be
independent and these can be the director of another AMC also. Its chairman
should be an independent person. AMCs can not engage in any business other
than that of financial advisory and investment management. Its memorandum
and articles of association have to be approved by the SEBI. Statutory disclosures
regarding AMCs operations should be periodically submitted to SEBI. Prior
approval of the trustees is required, before a person is appointed as a director on
the board of AMC. An AMC cannot invest in its own schemes until it is disclosed in
the offer document. Moreover in such investments, AMC will not be eligible for
fees also. The appointment of an AMC can be terminated by the majority of
trustees or by 75 percent of unit holders. Example: HDFC Asset Management
Company Ltd. was approved by SEBI vide its letter dated June 30, 2000 to act as
an Asset Management Company of the HDFC mutual fund. In terms of investment
management agreement, the trustee appointed this AMC. HDFCholds 60 percent
of the capital and Standard Life Investments hold remaining 40 percent of the
capital of the AMC. Its board has 12 members of whom 6 are independent. Apart
from three constituents discussed above, Custodians and transfer agents are
another two important constituents of mutual funds. These have been discussed
below.
iv. CUSTODIAN

SEBI requires that each mutual fund shall have a custodian who is independent
and registered with it. SEBI regulations provide for the appointment of a
custodian by trustees of the mutual fund who are responsible for carrying on the
activities of safe keeping of securities and participating in any clearing system on
behalf of mutual fund. Custodian is not permitted to act as a custodian of more
than one mutual fund without the prior approval of SEBI. They should be
independent of the sponsors. As for example, ICICI Bank is a sponsor of ICICI
Prudential Mutual fund. It is also a custodian bank. But it cannot offer its services
to ICICI Prudential Mutual fund, because it is a sponsor of this fund. The
appointment of any agency as custodian depends upon its track record, quality of
services, experience, transparency, computerization and other infrastructure
facilities. Custodians primarily perform securities settlement functions. However,
some also offer fund accounting and valuation services. The responsibilities of
custodian include delivering and accepting securities and cash, to complete
transactions made in the investment portfolio of mutual funds. Custodians also
track and keep pay-outs and corporate actions such as bonus, rights, offer for
sale, buy back offers, dividends, interest and redemption on the securities held by
the fund. They also look after that the discrepancies and failure must be timely
resolved.

v. TRANSFER AGENT

Registrar and transfer (R&T) agents are responsible for creating and maintaining
investor records kept in numbered account called folios and servicing them. They
accept and process investor transactions and also operate investor service centre
(ISCs) which acts as an official points for accepting investor transactions with a
fund. As for example, Computer Age Management Services (CAMS) is the R&T
agent for HDFC mutual fund. R&T functions include issuing and redeeming the
units and updating the unit capital account. R&T perform creating, maintaining
and updating the investors records and enabling their transactions such as
redemption, purchase and switches. Banking the payment instruments such as
drafts and cherubs given by investors and notifying the AMC is also done by them.
R&T send statutory and periodic information to investors and process pay-outs to
investors in the form of dividends and redemptions.
Types of Mutual Fund Schemes

Wide variety of mutual fund schemes exist according to their investment style
that helps in meeting the financial goal of the investors. These are grouped into
three broad categories i.e., their operations, investment objective and others.

CLASSIFICATION BY OPERATIONS

On the basis of operations of mutual funds schemes, they have been classified
into open-ended, close-ended and interval funds. These have been discussed
below in detail.

i. OPEN-ENDED FUNDS

An open-ended fund offers its units to the investors for sale and repurchase at all
the times at a price based on the net asset value (NAV) per unit. AMFI booklet has
described NAV as the market value of the asset of the scheme minus its liabilities.
Its per unit value is obtained by dividing the amount of the market value of the
funds assets (plus accrued income minus funds liabilities) by the number of units
outstanding. Thus, the holders of the units in such funds can buy or redeem units
from the fund itself at any time. The corpus of these funds changes constantly as
investors buy from or sell their units to the fund. Both the value and number of
units fluctuate on a daily basis as the value of the securities and the number of
investors change. The securities in the portfolio are valued at the end of each day.
The value is then divided by number of units in the fund to arrive at a price per
unit i.e. their net asset value. The advantages of this open ended structure are
numerous as these funds are liquid, convenient, and easy to buy and sell for the
investors. Axis Triple Advantage Fund, Birla Sun Life Basic Industries Fund, IDBI
India Top 100 Equity Fund, L&T Contra Fund, Taurus Tax Shield, Templeton
Floating Rate Income Fund, UTI - G-Sec Fund are some of the open ended mutual
funds.

ii. CLOSE-ENDED FUNDS

Close-ended funds offer a fixed number of units for a fixed period of subscription
to the investors as declared in their initial public offer (IPO). After subscription
period is over, these funds do not allow investors to buy or redeem units directly
from the fund house. However, many close-ended funds get themselves listed on
stock exchange(s) and enable investors to buy or sell units of these schemes in
the same fashion as for the shares of accompany. The funds units may be traded
above the NAV, called selling at a premium, or below, called selling at a
discount. The trading price depends upon a variety of things, as supply and
demand and the markets perception of the funds prospects, much like the price
of a stock. Some close-ended funds provide an exit route to the investors by
giving an option of selling back the units to the mutual fund through periodic
repurchase at NAV related prices. SEBI Regulations stipulate that at least one of
the two exit routes is provided to the investor i.e. either through listing on stock
exchanges or repurchases facility. These mutual funds schemes disclose NAV
generally on weekly basis. Canara Robeco Equity Tax Saver-93, DSP Merrill Lynch
Tax Saver Fund, Tata Life Sciences and Technology Fund, JM Arbitrage Advantage
Fund, Kotak Gold ETFare some of the close ended funds in India.

iii. INTERVAL FUNDS

These embrace the features of both open-ended and close-ended funds. These
funds may be traded on stock exchange or may be open for sale or redemption
during predetermined intervals at NAV related prices. Legally, interval funds are
classified as closed-end funds, but they are very different from traditional closed-
end funds in two ways. First, their shares typically do not trade on the secondary
market. Instead, their shares are subject to periodic repurchase offers by the fund
at a price based on net asset value. Second, they are permitted to continuously
offer their shares at a price based on the funds net asset value. An interval fund
will make periodic repurchase offers to its shareholders, generally every three,
six, or twelvemonths, as disclosed in the funds prospectus and annual report

CLASSIFICATION BY INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES

In this category, funds differ significantly with one another with respect to their
objectives and the type of securities, comprising their portfolio. Therefore, these
funds cater to the risk and return profile of different type of investors. The
following are the portfolio classification of these funds:

i. GROWTH FUND

The objective of a growth fund is to achieve capital appreciation over medium to


long term. These schemes normally invest a majority of their funds in equities and
are willing to bear short term decline in value for possible future appreciation.
Around 80-90 percent of corpus of these funds is invested in equity and equity
linked instruments and the balance in debt and money market securities. These
schemes are not for investors seeking regular income or needing their money
back in the short term but are suitable for long term investors seeking capital
appreciation and ready to bear a medium to high level of risk. These are also
known as nest eggs or long haul investments. BNP PARIBAS Equity Fund,
Canada Robe co emerging equities, DWS Investment Opportunity Fund, Fidelity
Equity Fund, HSBC Dynamic Fund, and Quantum Long-Term Equity Fund are some
examples of growth mutual funds in India.

ii. BALANCED FUNDS

The aim of the balanced funds is to provide both capital appreciation and periodic
returns over a long period of time. These funds have reasonable mix of equity and
bond in their portfolio by investing both in shares and fixed income securities in
the proportion as indicated in their offer documents. Normally a balanced fund
invests 60 percent out of its net assets in equity and 40percent in fixed income
securities, money market instruments and cash. Their risk profile is medium to
high. These are also called incomecumgrowth funds and are ideal for
investors seeking for a combination of regular income and moderate growth.
HDFC Balanced Fund, UTI Balanced Fund, Tata Balanced Funds are some of the
examples of these funds in India.

iii. INCOME FUND

Income funds provide regular and steady income to its investors. These funds
generally invests in fixed income securities such as government securities, bonds,
corporate debentures, money market instruments, cash and cash equivalent
while at the same time maintains a small exposure to the equity markets. Such
funds are less risky as compared to equity schemes as they are not affected by the
fluctuations in equity markets. Risk profile of income funds is generally from low
to medium however, opportunities of capital appreciation are also limited. These
funds are ideal for investors who need some income to supplement their earnings
as retired people and others with a need for capital stability and regular
income.NAV of such funds are affected because of the change in interest rates in
the country. If the interest rates fall, NAV of such funds are likely to increase in
the short run and vice versa. Some of the examples of Indian income mutual
funds are IDFC Capital Protection Oriented Fund, Kotak Hybrid Fixed Term Plan,
Reliance Fixed Horizon Fund, SBI Capital Protection Oriented Fund etc.
iv. MONEY MARKET/LIQUID FUNDS

Money market mutual funds provide easy liquidity, preservation of capital and
moderate income by investing in safer short term instruments such as treasury
bills (T-bills), certificates of deposits, commercial papers and interbank call
money. These funds provide high liquidity on low risk. Returns on these schemes
fluctuate according to the interest rates prevailing in the market. Money market
funds are ideal for corporate as well as individual investors as a means to park
their surplus funds for short periods or awaiting a more favorable investment
alternative. AIG India Liquid Fund, DSP Black Rock Liquidity Fund, ICICI Prudential
Liquid Plan, Tata Money Market Fund and UTI Money Market fund are some of
the examples of these funds.

v. GILT FUNDS

Gilt funds, as conveniently called are mutual fund schemes dedicated exclusively
to investments in government securities. Government securities mean and
include central government dated securities, state government securities and
treasury bills. These funds endow with the investors, safety of their investments
made in government securities and reaps better returns than direct investments
in these securities through investing in a variety of government securities yielding
varying rate of returns. The first gilt fund in India was set up in December 1998.
Gilt funds can be both short term and long term, and depending on their
investment horizon, investors can choose between them. These are ideal for
those investors who are risk-averse, and at the same time, are looking for
reasonable returns on their money. Gilt funds are a good option when interstates
are not expected to go up. However, these funds are not completely risk free
because there is an inverse relationship between bond prices and interest rates.
With the rise in interstate, prices of government securities fall which adversely
impacts the performance of gilt funds. Typically it is noticed that, higher the
funds average maturity, higher the volatility. Advantages of gilt funds are many.
As these funds are backed by government, therefore, these possess less credit
risk. These funds provide retail investors a low-cost way to invest in G-sec,which
otherwise was open only to large players. Also investment in Gilt funds provides
for effective diversification. Baroda Pioneer Gilt Fund, IDFC GSF-Provident Fund,
LICNOMURA MF Govt. Securities Fund-PF Plan, Taurus Gilt Fund and UTI - Gilt
Advantage-Long Term are some of the gilt funds in India.

FLOATING RATE FUND

These are the Debt mutual funds investing about 75 to 100 percent securities
such as bank loans, bonds and other debt securities that pay a floating rate
interest, while the rest infixed income securities. Floating rate funds are of two
types as long term and short term. The portfolio of the short-term fund plan is
normally skewed towards short-term maturities with higher liquidity whereas the
portfolio of long-term plan is skewed towards longer-term maturities however
they are positioned more on the lines of short-term funds and are not very
aggressive in nature. Floating Rate securities are different from traditional bonds
as most bonds have fixed interest rates which are set when they are first issued,
either by a government or a corporation. That rate of interest doesnt change for
the life of the bond. Whereas, a floating rate security, has a variable interest rate
that will go up and down, or float to reflect changes in current market rates.
Depending on the particular floating rate security, the interest rate may change
daily, monthly, quarterly, annually, or at another specified interval. These funds
provide low but stable returns. Birla Sun Life Floating Rate-Long Term Plan,
Reliance Floating Rate-Short Term Plan, LIC Nomura Floating Rate Fund is some of
its examples

vi. CASH OR TREASURY MANAGEMENT FUNDS

These funds are very similar to a liquid fund and invest predominantly in money
market securities. They chose instruments with tenure of up to 364 days and may
also have some exposure to longer term debt securities. Both the yield provided
and the risk associated with these funds is slightly higher than the liquid funds.
NAV of these funds also tend to bestable due to their focus on very short term
debt, where the market to market changes tend to be low. DSP Chola Treasury
Management Fund, Templeton Treasury Management fund, Tata Treasury
Management Fund are some of their examples.

vii. HIGH YIELD DEBT FUNDS

High yield debt funds seek higher interest income by investing in instruments
having lower credit ratings and therefore, higher risk of default. Lower the credit
rating, higher the interest a borrower pays. These funds are also called Junk
bond funds and are popular abroad, but not prevalent in India. Some of the high
yield bond funds are ING Pioneer High Yield Adv, Fidelity Capital & Income Fund,
Credit Suisse High Yield, Wells Fargo Advantage Strategic etc.

viii. FIXED MATURITY PLANS (FMP)

Fixed Maturity Plans (FMPs) are the passively managed close ended mutual fund
schemes in which the portfolio is held till the maturity of the assets it has invested
in. FMPs invest in debt instruments mainly as certificate of deposits and
commercial papers, whose maturity matches the maturity of the schemes. For
example, if FMP is of one year duration, the maturity of bonds and debt it holds
will also be exactly of one year. Debt securities are redeemed on maturity and
paid to the investors. The minimum investment amount is usually 5,000. FMPs
vary between 30 days and five year. They are issued in a series, one fund opening
after another has matured, or as interval fund. FMPs offer many benefits to
investors as low sensitivity to interest rates, tax efficiency and fixed tenure.

ix. MONTHLY INCOME PLANS (MIP)

The primary objective of monthly income plan is to generate regular income for
the investors. For fulfilling this purpose, these funds invest in fixed income
securities so as to make monthly payment or distribution to its unit holders. Their
secondary objective is growth of capital that is fulfilled through investments in
equity. MIP is a marginal equity product, which works for conservative investors
who are comfortable in investing a small component of their money in equity.
These funds invest a very small portion of their investment in stocks as well and
the rest is being invested in high-quality fixed income instruments. MIP is a good
solution for those who cannot invest in two different schemes, a bond fund and
an equity fund separately on their own and rebalance their portfolio regularly as
these funds not only gets the asset mix right but also rebalances the portfolio
from time to time. The risk profile of these funds is low to medium. DSP Black
Rock Monthly Income Plan, HDFC Monthly Income Plan, IDFC Monthly Income
Plan, Reliance Monthly Income Plan are some of the examples of MIP funds in
India.

x. SECTOR FUNDS

Sector funds invest in a specified sector of the economy or in a specified industry


only as information technology, oil and gas companies or in specified products.
They carry the risk and return associated with these industries. Major
disadvantage from investment in these funds is that being sector specific, they
lack in diversification and their risk profile is also high. Sector funds are suitable
for investors who have already decided to invest in a particular sector or segment.
Baroda Pioneer Banking and Financial Services Fund, Reliance Media and
Entertainment fund, SBI Magnum Sector Funds UmbrellaParma, JM Telecom
Sector Fund, UTI Auto Sector Fund are some of the sector funds in India.
OTHERS

There are some other types of mutual funds also apart from the above stated

Classification. These have been discussed below in detail.

i. INDEX FUNDS

The objective of index funds is to generate capital commensurate with the index it
tracks. This is done by investing in all the stocks comprising the index in
approximately the same weight age that they represent in the specific index. For
example, a fund that tracks this Sensitive Index will invest in the same 30
securities of the index and in the same proportion. Portfolio of these funds
appreciates or depreciates in more or less the same way as index they have been
following. Index funds are suitable for investors, looking for a return
approximately equal to that of an index. Goldman Sachs Nifty BeES 1, HDFC Index
Fund -Sensex plus Plan, IDFC Nifty FundGrowth, Reliance Index Fund-Nifty Plan,
LIC NomuraMF Index Fund-Nifty Plan, ICICI Prudential Index Fund, Tata Index
Fund-Nifty Plan are some of the index funds in India.

ii. TAX SAVING FUNDS

Tax Saving Funds in India offer rebates in taxes to its investors under the Income
Tax Act, Section 88. They are also known as equity-linked savings schemes (ELSS).
Tax Saving Funds in India usually carry a lock-in-period of three years. Therefore,
these funds are not concerned about factors such as the pressures of redemption,
performance during a short time etc. and thus keep in view the long term goal.
Fund manager of the Tax Saving Funds in India invests money in instruments that
are related to equity.

iii. EXCHANGE TRADED FUND (ETF)

An exchange traded fund is an open ended fund that tracks an index like an index
fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange just like the shares of an individual
company. Unlike the share of a company, each unit of an ETF represents a
portfolio of stocks. Therefore, these funds are similar to a unit of an open-ended
mutual fund but with a big difference. The difference between an ETF and an
open-ended mutual fund is that the units of an ETF trade on an exchange and
therefore, the investor can trade in it during market hours and the units can be
sold short or margined just like shares. Another difference is the type of
management. Mutual funds employ an active management strategy wherein the
fund manager chooses portfolio of stocks and manages them in an endeavor to
outperform the fund's benchmark. However, ETFs employ a passive management
strategy because they are designed to closely track the performance of a specific
index. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and
sold on exchange. These funds first came into existence in the USA in 1993. The
first ETF in India, Nifty Bees, was launched by Benchmark Mutual Fund, on
January 8, 2002, which tracks the S&P CNX Nifty. Nifty Junior Benchmark
Exchange Traded Scheme-Junior bees, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund-Sensex Fund-
Spice, Kotak Sensex ETF, Quantum Index FundQnifty, Reliance Banking Exchange
Traded Fund Relbank are some of the Exchange Traded Funds in India.

iv. GOLD EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS

Gold ETFs are exchange traded funds that are meant to track closely the price of
physical gold. Each unit of the ETF lets the investor own 1 gm of gold without
physically owning it. Thus investing in a gold ETF provides the benefit of liquidity
and marketability which are a limitation of owning physical gold. Gold ETF is
highly liquid because these can be traded at any time during market hours. Gold
ETF is marketable as investors can trade any amount in it just like a normal stock
including short selling and buying on margin. Owning gold ETF is cheaper also
than owning physical gold because it has no carrying cost as the cost of storing
physical gold. Countrys first GETF was launched by Benchmark mutual fund as
Gold BeES on February 1, 2007. This mutual fund was an open ended fund that
would track domestic prices of gold through investments in physical gold. Some of
the Gold Exchange Traded Funds in India are Axis Mutual Fund-Axis Gold ETF,
Gold Benchmark Exchange Traded Scheme, Birla Sun Life Gold ETF, HDFC Gold
Exchange Traded Fund, ICICI Prudential Gold Exchange Traded Fund, KOTAK Gold
ETF, Quantum Gold Fund, Reliance Gold Exchange Traded Fund, Religare Gold
Exchange Traded Fund, SBI Gold Exchange Traded Fund, UTI Gold Exchange
Traded Fund.
ATTRIBUTES OF MUTUAL FUND

In the past literature it has been found that there are various mutual fund
characteristics that influence their performance. These characteristics have been
called as the attributes of mutual funds. Finance professionals and journalists
frequently claim that various fund attributes are useful devices to either select
the top-performing funds or eliminate the worst performers. These attributes are
of paramount importance and have been discussed in this section.

i. PAST PERFORMANCE

Past performance tells about the performance of the mutual fund in the past time
periods. It is measured by the return through Net Asset Value (NAV) of the mutual
fund. The NAV and its calculation have been described in detail in later sections.

ii. ASSET SIZE

Asset size of a mutual fund is the total market value of all the securities held in its
portfolio. AMFI has described it by the Asset under Management of the mutual
funds.

iii. EXPENSE RATIO

Total expenses of the mutual funds are divided into three components as
management fees, marketing and distribution fees and other expenses including
securities custodian fees, transfer agent fees, shareholder accounting expenses,
auditor fees, legal fees and independent direct fees. These total expenses divided
by the fund average net assets is its expense ratio. As described by the Centre for
Research and Security Prices (CRSP), it is the ratio of funds operating expenses
paid by shareholders to the total investment.

iv. LOAD STATUS

Investment in mutual funds costs load fee to the investors. AMFI has described
two types of load fee. One is entry load and second is the exit load. Entry load is
the charge collected by a scheme when it sells the units. It is also called as sales
load or Front-end load. Exit load is the charge collected by a scheme when it
buys back its units from the unit holders. It is also called as the repurchase or
backend load. SEBI has abolished entry load from all mutual fund schemes in
India with effect from 1 August 2009.

v. INVESTMENT STYLE

Mutual fund schemes possess specific investment styles on the basis of their
investment objectives like equity funds for growth of capital, income funds for
regular income, balanced funds for a balanced combination of regular income and
growth and liquid funds for liquidity. It has also been classified on the basis of
their functions as open ended, close ended etc.

vi. RISK

Investment is always associated with some risk. Risk involved in the investment of
some mutual fund scheme is being measured as the deviation in actual return
from the expected one. Mutual funds risk is calculated in two ways. One is the
total risk measured by the standard deviation () and the other is the systematic
risk measured by the beta ().
vii. AGE OF THE MUTUAL FUND SCHEME

Past literature has considered age of the mutual fund as an attribute that affect
their return performance because of the economies of experience. Age of the
mutual fund scheme sat any particular time is determined by the time period
since their inception date.

VALUATION AND COST OF INVESTING IN MUTUAL FUNDS

NET ASSET VALUE (NAV)

Net Asset Value is the market value of assets of the scheme minus its liabilities.
Per unit NAV is the net asset value of the scheme divided by the number of units
outstanding on the Valuation Date8. For calculating the mutual fund's NAV, value
of the total assets of the mutual fund is subtracted by its liabilities, and then this
amount is divided by the total number of units in the mutual fund. i.e.,

Mutual Funds NAV = (Total AssetsLiabilities) / Total number of units

The assets of a mutual fund would consist of its investments and cash whereas its
liabilities include operating expenses. NAV for all mutual funds is calculated every
business day called the valuation day. Valuing the mutual fund portfolio
employing the current market prices of the securities held by it is called marking
to market. The net assets of the schemes are represented at current market
value, and therefore, NAV is the current value of each unit of the scheme. Net
assets of a scheme go up when there is a realized income or appreciation in the
market value of the schemes assets. It goes down in cases of realized loss or
depreciation in the value of schemes assets. NAV of all mutual fund schemes
have to be posted on the website of AMFI every business day till 9 PM. Its value is
rounded off to two decimal places for all schemes except for liquid, debt and
index funds for which its value is rounded off to four decimal places.

EXPENSES AND COST OF INVESTING IN MUTUAL FUNDS

The charges that investors pay to buy or sell a mutual fund and on-going fund
operating expenses impact their rate of return. This is due to the fact that fees are
deducted from their investment returns. Many people wrongly assume that the
only expense incurred in mutual fund investment is the load fee. With various
advantages offered by mutual funds as liquidity, diversification, and professional
management, one additional huge advantage is the complete disclosure of all the
fees. Apart from the load fees and other charges, mutual fund costs are classified
into the operation expenses, paid out of the fund's earnings, and sales charges,
that are directly deducted from the capital which investors invest

i. SCHEME EXPENSES:

Expenses incurred in managing a mutual fund are borne by its investors and are
deducted from the market value of investments to arrive at the net assets value
of scheme. SEBI regulates the heads of expenses that can be charged to mutual
fund scheme and their maximum value that can be so charged. Any expense that
is not chargeable, or is higher than the regulatory limits, has to be borne by the
AMC itself. There are two broad types of expenses incurred by the mutual fund
schemes. First are the initial issue expenses and second are fund running
expenses.

1A -Initial Issue Expenses:

Initial issue expenses are incurred at the time of launch of a scheme to meet
expenses on advertisement and commission. These are the expenses at the time
of new fund offer(NFO) and cannot be charged to the investors as these have to
be borne by the AMC itself.

1B - Fund Running Expenses:

Fund running expenses are incurred to manage the money mobilized from the
investors. SEBI (Mutual Fund) Regulations have specified the heads of expenses
that can be charged to the schemes and the maximum expense chargeable
(Expense Ratio), as percentage of net assets. Only certain types of expenses
incurred to manage the mutual fund, called as direct expenses can be charged to
its schemes. These expenses are charged on the mutual fund scheme on accrual
basis and are reduced from the assets of the scheme before computing their NAV.
The costs are deducted from the income earned by the fund, and are called
expense ratio. It is an annual fee that is charged to a mutual fund to pay for such
expenses as: Investment management fees, marketing and selling expenses
including commission, fees of registrar and transfer agent, trustee fees, custodian
fees, audit fees, costs related to investor communication and costs of statutory
disclosures and advertisements. An annual expense is expressed as a percentage
of the fund's average daily or weekly net assets and its break-up is reported in the
scheme's offer document. The expense ratio is calculated after dividing operating
expenses of a mutual fund scheme by its average net assets. Securities and
Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Mutual Fund Regulations have specified the limits
for expenses charged to the fund as per the following slabs:

Net assets Equity schemes Debt schemes

First Rs. 100 crore 2.50% 2.25%

Next Rs. 300 crore 2.25% 2.00%

Next Rs. 300 crore 2.00% 1.75%

On the balance of assets 1.75% 1.50%

ii. ENTRY LOAD

An entry load is a sales charge investors pay when they buy units of a mutual fund
scheme. In other words, it is a charge collected by a scheme when it sells its units.
This charge reduces the amount of their investment in fund. It is also called as
Front-end load or Sales Load. Schemes that do not charge a load are called No
Load schemes.

iii. EXIT LOAD

Exit load is imposed on redemptions as this is the charge collected by a scheme


when it buys back the units from its unit holders. Investors pay this charge when
they sell mutual fund units. This reduces the amount received by them at the time
of redemption. It is also called as Repurchase or Back-end Load:

iv. CONTINGENT DEFERRED SALES CHARGE (CDSC)

A CDSC is a sales load that investors pay at the time of redeeming their mutual
fund units. These are the variable exit load that decreases over time. As per the
regulations laid down by SEBI, a no-load scheme can charge a CDSC. The asset
management company is entitled to levy a CDSC not exceeding 4 percent of the
redemption proceeds in the first four years after purchase, 3 percent during the
second year, 2 percent in the third year and 1percent in the fourth year.

The mutual funds have been restricted to charge entry and exit loads on investors
with effect

from August 1, 2009 as follows:

1 - Investors will not be charged any entry load. Therefore, the purchase price for
investors

i.e., the sales price for mutual funds should be same as the NAV of fund.

2 - Exit loads or CDSC charged to investors in excess of 1 percent is credited back


to the scheme.

3 - Exit load does not vary on the basis of type of investor and is applied
uniformly to all the investors in a scheme.
v. Sale Price

It is the price paid by investors at the time of investing in a scheme. Or in other


words, it is the purchase price for investors and is also called as Offer Price. Sale
price may also include a sales load.

vi. REPURCHASE PRICE

It is the price at which units under open-ended schemes are repurchased by the
Mutual Fund. Such prices are NAV related.

vii. REDEMPTION PRICE

It is the price at which close-ended schemes redeem their units on maturity. Such
prices are also NAV related.

Introduction to Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS)

ELSS is a dedicated mutual fund scheme that allows investors to save tax. It also
provides an opportunity for long term capital appreciation. An ELSS fund manager
invests in a diversified portfolio, predominantly consisting of equity and equity
related instruments that carry high-risk and have the potential to deliver high-
returns.

Since it is an equity fund, the returns from this scheme are market determined.
1. Tax-saving
2. Three-year lock-in period
3. Can be held even after the completion of three years
4. Offers dividend as well as growth options
5. Tax Saving instrument

Tax Treatment

The returns from an ELSS fund are tax free in your hands. The long term capital
gains from an ELSS are tax free as well. This is because no tax is levied on equities
that are held for more than a year. Since an ELSS falls under section 80C, you can
claim up to Rs. 1, 00,000 from your investment as a deduction from your gross
total income.

Schemes offered by the firm


Income Category

This category of schemes invests only into debt instruments issued by


government, public or private companies.

Liquid Funds: These schemes invest in short term income instruments such as

certificate of deposits, treasury bills and short-term bonds. The objective of these
schemes is to provide current income with high liquidity. The ideal investment
horizon is 1 day to 1 month.

Short-Term Income Funds: These schemes invest in short-term money market

instruments and corporate bonds. The objective of these schemes is to provide a


higher current income than liquid funds but without compromising the liquidity.
The ideal investment horizon is 1 month to 3 months.

Medium-Term Income Funds: These schemes invest in medium-term treasury bills

and corporate bonds. The objective of these schemes is to provide a higher


current income than short-term income funds with reasonable liquidity. The ideal
investment horizon is 3 months to 6 months.

Long-Term Income Funds: These schemes invest in medium to long term treasury

bills, dated government securities and corporate bonds. The objective of these
schemes is to provide consistent returns higher than medium term income funds
with reasonable liquidity. The ideal investment horizon is more than 6 months to
2 years.

Floating Rate Funds: These schemes invest in short-term to long-term


instruments comprising of government securities and corporate bonds. The
objectives of these schemes to provide consistent returns by investing in floating
rate instruments, which are indexed to interest rate or consumer price indexes.
These schemes also provide reasonable liquidity to the investors. The ideal
investment horizon depends on the type of floating rate scheme chosen short
term floating rate scheme, medium term floating rate scheme, floating rate
income scheme, etc.

Bond funds: These schemes invest in securities issued by central government,

state government, public sector companies and private sector companies. The
objective of these schemes is to provide a consistent high return from a portfolio
of bonds comprised of the securities described above. The ideal investment
horizon is about 1 year to 2 years.

Fixed Maturity Plans: These schemes have a fixed maturity date wherein the

scheme gets matured. These schemes are closed ended in nature. They are open
for a fixed duration, at first, during which investors can subscribe for units of the
scheme. After the fixed duration gets over, the schemes close for further
subscriptions. Units are allotted only to the persons who have invested during the
initial opening period. The plans have fixed maturities like 3 months, 6 months, 1
year, etc. After such a fixed period or on maturity date, units of the investors are
bought back by the mutual fund at the NAV applicable on that day. The objective
of these schemes is to provide a fixed income for a fixed period to the unit
holders from a portfolio of various types of debt instruments.

Equity Category

This category of schemes invests only into shares of companies.

Diversified Equity Funds: These schemes invest in equity shares of public and

private companies across different sectors. The objective of the scheme is to


provide long term capital appreciation while reducing risk by diversifying
investments into various sectors of the economy.
Sector Equity Funds: These schemes invest in shares of public and private

companies of a particular sector of the economy only. The objective of these


funds is to focus on a particular sector, which presents opportunities for high
capital appreciation in the medium to long-term time horizon. Even this class of
equity funds can have narrower classifications of large cap, mid cap and small cap
schemes.

Index Funds:These schemes are a replicate or try to replicate a popular index of a

stock exchange. The objective of the fund is to allow investors to invest in stocks,
which represent the popular index and in the same proportions in which the
stocks are in that popular index.

Tax Funds: These schemes are basically diversified equity schemes but with a tax
advantage. Amounts invested into these schemes qualify for deduction while
computing taxable income of an individual. Hence, these schemes not only give
returns from investment but also save us taxes. However, investment into these
schemes for tax deductions is restricted to a certain amount.
Type Of RISK In Mutual Fund
There are five main indicators of investment risk that apply to the analysis
of stocks, bonds and mutual fund portfolios. They are alpha, beta, r-
squared, standard deviation and the Sharpe ratio. These statistical measures are
historical predictors of investment risk/volatility and are all major components
of modern portfolio theory (MPT). The MPT is a standard financial and academic
methodology used for assessing the performance of equity, fixed-income and
mutual fund investments by comparing them to market benchmarks.

All of these risk measurements are intended to help investors determine the risk-
reward parameters of their investments. In this article, we'll give a brief
explanation of each of these commonly used indicators.

Alpha

Alpha is a measure of an investment's performance on a risk-adjusted basis. It


takes the volatility (price risk) of a security or fund portfolio and compares its risk-
adjusted performance to a benchmark index. The excess return of the investment
relative to the return of the benchmark index is its "alpha."

Simply stated, alpha is often considered to represent the value that a portfolio
manager adds or subtracts from a fund portfolio's return. A positive alpha of 1.0
means the fund has outperformed its benchmark index by 1%. Correspondingly, a
similar negative alpha would indicate an underperformance of 1%. For
investors, the more positive an alpha is, the better it
Beta

Beta, also known as the "beta coefficient," is a measure of the volatility,


or systematic risk, of a security or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a
whole. Beta is calculated using regression analysis, and you can think of it as the
tendency of an investment's return to respond to swings in the market. By
definition, the market has a beta of 1.0. Individual security and portfolio values
are measured according to how they deviate from the market.

A beta of 1.0 indicates that the investment's price will move in lock-step with the
market. A beta of less than 1.0 indicates that the investment will be less volatile
than the market, and, correspondingly, a beta of more than 1.0 indicates that the
investment's price will be more volatile than the market. For example, if a fund
portfolio's beta is 1.2, it's theoretically 20% more volatile than the market.

Conservative investors looking to preserve capital should focus on securities and


fund portfolios with low betas, whereas those investors willing to take on more
risk in search of higher returns should look for high beta investments.

R-Squared

R-Squared is a statistical measure that represents the percentage of a fund


portfolio's or security's movements that can be explained by movements in a
benchmark index. For fixed-income securities and their corresponding mutual
funds, the benchmark is the U.S. Treasury Bill, and, likewise with equities and
equity funds, the benchmark is the S&P 500 Index.
R-squared values range from 0 to 100. According to Morningstar, a mutual fund
with an R-squared value between 85 and 100 has a performance record that is
closely correlated to the index. A fund rated 70 or less would not perform like the
index.

Standard Deviation

Standard deviation measures the dispersion of data from its mean. In plain
English, the more that data is spread apart, the higher the difference is from the
norm. In finance, standard deviation is applied to the annual rate of return of an
investment to measure its volatility (risk). A volatile stock would have a high
standard deviation. With mutual funds, the standard deviation tells us how much
the return on a fund is deviating from the expected returns based on its historical
performance.

Sharpe Ratio

Developed by Nobel laureate economist William Sharpe, this ratio measures risk-
adjusted performance. It is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate of
return (U.S. Treasury Bond) from the rate of return for an investment and dividing
the result by the investment's standard deviation of its return.

The Sharpe ratio tells investors whether an investment's returns are due to smart
investment decisions or the result of excess risk. This measurement is very useful
because although one portfolio or security can reap higher returns than its peers,
it is only a good investment if those higher returns do not come with too much
additional risk. The greater an investment's Sharpe ratio, the better its risk-
adjusted performance.

The Bottom Line

Many investors tend to focus exclusively on investment return, with little concern
for investment risk. The five risk measures we have just discussed can provide
some balance to the risk-return equation. The good news for investors is that
these indicators are calculated for them and are available on several financial
websites, as well as being incorporated into many investment research reports.
As useful as these measurements are, keep in mind that when considering a
stock, bond or mutual fund investment, volatility risk is just one of the factors you
should be considering that can affect the quality of an investment.

Sales Promotion & Distribution network

Sale Promotion & Distribution Network


Sales promotions are the set of marketing activities undertaken to boost sales of
the product or service. Sales promotions are the set of marketing activities
undertaken to boost sales of the product or service.
Description: There are two basic types of sales promotions: trade and consumer
sales promotions. The schemes, discounts, freebies, commissions and incentives
given to the trade (retailers, wholesalers, distributors, C&Fs) to stock more, push
more and hence sell more of a product come under trade promotion. These are
aimed at enticing the trade to stock up more and hence reduce stock-outs,
increase share of shelf space and drive sales through the channels. However,
trade schemes get limited by the cost incurred by the company as well as the
limitations of the trade in India to stock up free goods. Incentives can be overseas
trips and gifts.
But sales promotion activity aimed at the final consumer are called consumer
schemes. These are used to create a pull for the product and are advertised in
public media to attract attention. Maximum schemes are floated in festival times,
like Diwali or Christmas. Examples are buy soap, get diamond free; buy biscuits,
collect runs; buy TV and get some discount or a free item with it and so on.
Consumer schemes become very prominent in the 'maturity or decline' stages of
a product life cycle, where companies vie to sell their own wares against severe
competition.

The impact of sales promotions:


Sales promotions typically increase the level of sales for the duration they are
floated. Usually, as soon as the schemes end, the sales fall, but hopefully, settle at
a higher level than they were before the sales promotion started. For the
company, it can be a means to gain market share, though an expensive way.
For consumers, these can offer great value for money. But sustained sales
promotions can seriously damage a brand and its sales, as consumers wait
specifically for the sales promotion to buy and not otherwise. Therefore, sales
promotions are to be used as a tactical measure as part of an overall plan, and not
as an end itself.

Distribution Channels
There are number of distribution channels that are existing and the channels are
still expanding. The channels can be divided into the following heads:

Direct Marketing

Personal selling

Telemarketing

Direct Mail

Selling through intermediaries like brokers, agents, banks, etc.

Joint calls

According to Syed Sahabuddin, the essentials of a Good Distribution System are:

Product selection should be done carefully.

Internal sales staff should be carefully selected.

Right targeting of customers should be done. A proper strategy based on a


demographic study
will lead to a smooth, seamless customer penetration and sales volumes.

Proper training - Training is the key on which the entire distribution revolves. It
is essential that
sales force should be continuous trained in this dynamic environment.
Educating/ counselling the customer about products is required keeping in mind
rising customer
expectations and increasing buyer expertise.

Advertisement of Mutual Funds


Nowadays the Advertising content has changed. Now they are concept selling ads
which used to be selling specific schemes that defined objectives /goals. Thus an
advertising campaign must have the following elements present:
Creating awareness of the product,
Comparative advantage of the product,
Future potential of the product,
Past performance of similar products,
Superiority of the fund in relation to others in the area of asset management
and performance servicing.

However, One of the limiting factor that prevents Mutual Fund advertising is the
regulatory framework .For instance, the MF are required to mention the fund
objective in very clear terms in the offer document, and risk factor also to be
mentioned. SEBI also prohibits any content that mislead the investors. All the
Mutual fund have to first understand the meaning and implications of the SEBI
Guidelines pertaining to mutual fund Marketing before designing a Marketing
strategy.
Methods adopted by AMCs for Promotion and Campaigning of Mutual Fund
1. Through Advertisement:

Each AMC spends a lot of money in order to advertise for its Mutual Fund. The
amount spend is high in case New Fund Offers. Various mediums of
advertisement use are given below:

Television

Radio

Print Media

Hoardings

According to Kaushik Raja, the following are the forms of advertising adopted by
Mutual Funds.
A) Tombstone Advertisement
B) Product Launch Advertisement
C) Advertisements through Hoardings/Posters
D) Advertisements through Audio-Visual Media

2. Online Blogs:

Various AMCs promote their product through online blogs. They advertise their
product on various online sites.

3. Telephonic Calls:
Almost all the distributors promote the Mutual Fund with the help of telephone.
They have the phone numbers of existing clients and potential clients. A trained
person makes a call to the clients and promotes the Mutual Fund.

4. By Providing More Commission to Distributors:

The distributor gets a variable commission from the AMC when they sell their
Mutual Fund. The commission varies from 0.5% to 5%. Thus by providing more
commission to the distributor, the AMCs influence the distributor to promote
their products only.

5. By Putting Canopies:

This method is adopted by both distributor and AMCs in order to campaign for
the product. They put canopy at a place where they could interact with maximum
number of probable clients.

According to Trivedi Akhil Marketing Strategies Adopted by Mutual Funds (For


selling and distribution). the present marketing strategies of mutual funds can be
divided into three main headings:

1 - Direct Marketing:This constitutes 20 percent of the total sales of mutual funds.


Some of the important tools used in this type of selling are:

Personal Selling
Telemarketing
Direct mail
Advertisements in newspapers and magazines
Hoardings and Banners

2- Selling through intermediaries:

Intermediaries contribute towards 80% of the total sales of mutual funds. These
are the distributors who are in direct touch with the investors. They perform an
important role in attracting new customers. Most of these intermediaries are also
involved in selling shares and other investment instruments. They do a
commendable job in convincing investors to invest in mutual funds. A lot depends
on the after sale services offered by the intermediary to the customer. Customers
prefer to work with those intermediaries who give them right information about
the fund and keep them abreast with the latest changes taking place in the
market especially if they have any bearing on the fund in which they have
invested. Most of the funds conduct monthly/bi-monthly meetings with their
distributors. The objective is to hear their complaints regarding service aspects
from funds side and other queries related to the market situation. Sometimes,
special training programs are also conducted for the new agents/ distributors.
Training involves giving details about the products of the fund, their present
performance in the market, what the competitors are doing and what they can do
to increase the sales of the fund.
Chapter 2

Objective & Scope


Objective & Scope

The objectives of the study imposed which of the criteria researcher believed to
require research.

1) To evaluate the growth of mutual funds

2) To examine the return from selected MF

3) To documents investments on selected assets allocation trends of mutual funds

4) To minimize risk and remove the unsystematic risk

5) To identified systematic risk

6) To identified return variance

7) To identified capital market return with security market return.

8) To evaluate the overall performance of mutual funds

9) To give a brief idea about the benefits available from Mutual Fund investment

10) To give an idea of the types of schemes available.

11) To discuss about the market trends of Mutual Fund investment.

12) To study some of the mutual fund schemes and analyse them

13) Observe the fund management process of mutual funds

14) Explore the recent developments in the mutual funds in India

15) To give an idea about the regulations of mutual funds


Limitation of the study:
a). Time constraints: Due to shortage or less availability of time it may be possible that all the
related and concerned aspects may not be covered in the project.

b). Analysis done is limited to the availability of data.


Chapter - 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It


may be understood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically. In
ii researcher pursue various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in
studying his research problem along with the logic behind them. It is necessary to
know not only the research methods and techniques but also the methodology.

Research methodology follow the step, after sampling design then need to
identified the hypothesis means set of assumption for study. Mutual Fund set
assumption regarding equity schemes provided same return and risk. Researcher
goes behind financial and statistical tool to arrive at conclusion.

METHODOLOGY

To achieve the objective of studying the stock market data has been collected.
Research methodology carried for this study can be two types

1. Primary
2. Secondary

PRIMARY:
The data, which has being collected for the first time and it is the original data.
In this project the primary data has been taken from HSE staff and guide of the
project.

SECONDARY:
The secondary information is mostly taken from websites, books, journals, etc.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

The research design is the conceptual framework within which researcher study is
conducted and it construct the blue print for collection of data, measurement of
data, statistical tools for analysis and analysis of variance. Research design
included an outline of what the researcher will do from writing the hypothesis
and its operational implication to the final analysis of data.
Chapter 4

Finding, Conclusion & Recommendations


Finding, Conclusion& Recommendations

To study the currently available schemes I have taken the fact sheets available
with the AMCs. The fact sheet provides the historical data about the various
schemes offered by the AMC, investment pattern, dividend history, ratings given,
Fund Managers Credentials.

I have analysed the schemes in the following three categories:


Equity or Growth Scheme
Balanced Scheme
Income or Debt Scheme

I have studied the schemes of the following AMCs


Kotak Mutual Fund
SBI Mutual Fund
Franklin Templeton India Mutual Fund
Principal Mutual fund

Basis for Analysis


Net Asset Value (NAV) is the best parameter on which the performance of a
mutual fund can be studied. We have studied the performance of the NAV based
on the compounded annual return of the Scheme in terms of appreciation of
NAV, dividend and bonus issues. WE have compared the Annual returns of various
schemes to get an idea about their relative standings.

SUGGESTIONS

Four sequential steps will enable investor to decide effectively.


1. Divide the spectrum of Mutual Funds depending on major asset classes
invested in.

Presently there are only two.


Equity Funds investing in stocks.
Debt Funds investing in interest paying securities issued by government, semi-
government bodies, public sector units and corporates.

2. A) Categorizing equities
Diversified invest in large capitalized stocks belonging to multiple sectors.
Sectorial Invest in specific sectors like technology, FMCG, Pharma, etc.

2. B) Categorized Debt.
Gilt Invest only in government securities, long maturity securities with average
of 9 to 13 years, very sensitive to interest rate movement.

Medium Term Debt (Income Funds) Invest in corporate debt, government


securities and PSU bonds. Average maturity is 5 to 7 years.

Short Term Debt Average maturity is 1 year. Interest rate sensitivity is very low
with steady returns.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Websites:
www.mutualfundindia.com

www.mututalfunds.com

www.sebi.com

www.moneycontrol.com

www.capitalmarket.com

www.amfi.com

www.bseindia.com

www.sebi.gov.in

www.nseindia.com

Reference books:

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND MARKETS - L.M.BHOLE

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT - V.K.BHALLA

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