Thanks to the ‘ Mutual Funds Sahi Hain ’ campaign, the industry seems to have hit the right growth trajectory even as uncertainty looms large on the growth prospects of the economy and corporate earnings.
The overall assets under management (AUM) of the industry has increased 26 per cent in the financial year ended March 31 to ₹23 lakh crore, from ₹18.31 lakh crore logged in the same period last fiscal.
However, due to the recent fall in the equity market, AUM growth in March was up a mere 4 per cent from ₹22.2 lakh crore registered in February.
Last fiscal, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund had topped the table recording a growth of 26 per cent in AUM at ₹3.05 lakh crore (₹2.43 lakh crore). It was closely followed by HDFC Mutual Fund and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund with AUM growth of 27 per cent each at ₹3 lakh crore (₹2.37 lakh crore) and ₹2.47 lakh crore (₹1.95 lakh crore), respectively.
Reliance Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund recorded AUM of ₹2.45 lakh crore (₹2.10 lakh crore) and ₹2.17 lakh crore (₹1.57 lakh crore), respectively.
Sundeep Sikka, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management, said the fund house has made a lot of progress in focusing more on retail customers from smaller towns and the past good performance track record of Reliance also helped get new investors.
Axis Mutual Fund has seen a growth of 34 per cent with an AUM of ₹77,325 crore (₹57,700 crore) with launch of four new fund offers mopping up about ₹4,900 crore.
Mahindra Mutual Fund’s assets were up 69 per cent at ₹3,368 crore (₹1,995 crore), and that of Edelweiss Mutual Fund’s was up 75 per cent at ₹12,100 crore.
Way to decent returns
Jinesh Gopani, Head — Equities, Axis Mutual Fund, said the consistent fund flow into mutual funds shows that investors are now convinced that they cannot rely on bank deposits alone to get decent returns. Ashutosh Bishnoi, Managing Director, Mahindra Mutual Fund, said the fund house has garnered assets from over 300 cities which resulted in about 29-30 per cent of retail assets coming from B-15 cities.
The future target is to raise assets from 500 towns and get about one-two lakh customers by 2020.
Laggards
Some of the fund houses which registered drop in AUM last fiscal include Taurus Mutual Fund (-73 per cent), DHFL Pramerica MF (-10 per cent), LIC MF (-6 per cent), Escorts Mutual Fund (-5 per cent), Sahara Mutual Fund (-4 per cent) and Indiabulls Mutual Fund (-1 per cent).