Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Mutual funds' AUM takes a beating again

ASSETS under management (AUM) of Indian mutual funds continued to shrink in November, extending the downtrend for the third consecutive 
month. Total assets at 
the close of the month stood at Rs 4,02,029 crore, down 7% from October. In relative terms, this is the second-highest monthly decline, after the 18% drop seen in the month before. Overall, AUMs are down 30% from the start of this calendar. 

Barring Tata Asset Management and UTI, all other fund houses have seen their assets decline. The recently-formed Mirae Asset Management has lost more than 69% of its AUM from the beginning of October to end of November. The fund house had lost nearly 57% of its assets in October. However, Arindam Ghosh, CEO of Mirae Asset, said AUM is the average figure for the month and that the fund house has not seen major redemptions in November. In fact, it has seen marginal net inflows in its equity funds. 

The other fund houses to have lost heavily last month include Taurus (-34%), Edelweiss (-28%) and ING (-22%) among others. 

Tata and UTI have registered a growth of about 3.2% and 0.2% in their AUMs. According to Ved Prakash Chaturvedi, MD, Tata AMC, while the equity schemes have seen marginal inflows, the fixed income funds have seen good inflow of funds. 

"As a fund house, we have been investing only in highly rated– AAA– and equivalent papers, and have maintained the disclosure transparency in all our portfolios which has helped gain the investor confidence," he said. 

Jaideep Bhattacharya, CMO, UTI Asset Management also confirmed fresh inflows in the fixed income funds, from both retail and corporate investors. "While our equity schemes have also seen inflows, they are not adding to large amounts since most are through the SIP route. We have had nearly 70,000 new SIP accounts in the last 45 days," he said. Its new fund order (NFO), UTI Wealth Builder Series– II, has also collected close to Rs 300 crore. However, the same shall be reflected in the AUM for the month of December 2008, he said. 

UTI also has another reason to cheer this time. With an AUM of Rs 38,358 crore, it has regained its position as the third largest fund house displacing ICICI Prudential, whose AUM fell 5.4% to Rs 37,055 crore. Reliance continues to retain its coveted numero uno position, despite a decline of about 4.6% in the AUM. The fund’s average assets currently stand at Rs 67,816 crore.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Personal_Finance/Mutual_Funds/MF_News/Mutual_funds_AUM_takes_a_beating_again/articleshow/3786192.cms

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