The mutual fund industry, which has been facing huge redemption pressure, has something to cheer about -- assets managed by them hit a record figure of ₹9.03 lakh crore in January. Assets were up 9.4 per cent or ₹77,400 crore over the previous month.

According to a Crisil report, the rise in the asset base was primarily due to inflows of ₹83,500 crore — the highest since April 2013. Bulk of the inflows was into money market or liquid funds.

“More than looking at it from a mutual fund industry standpoint, the fact that the overall participation of retail investors in equities was up is a bigger positive,” Aashish P Somaiyaa, CEO, Motilal Oswal AMC, said.

It is a sign that people are regaining confidence in equities as an asset class compared to other assets such as gold and real estate, he added.

Equity funds recorded inflows for the third consecutive month in January at ₹427 crore. However, the amount was less than ₹699 crore in November and ₹857 crore in December.

The category’s (equity) assets, however, declined 4 per cent to ₹1.75 lakh crore during the month, mainly due to the weakness in the underlying market. The NSE Nifty slipped 3.4 per cent in January. According to Crisil, the mutual fund industry’s asset base was at ₹8.25 lakh crore in December 2013, dipping from ₹8.90 lakh crore in November 2013.

According to the report, liquid funds saw net inflows worth ₹77,500 crore, the highest in nine months, leading to a 43 per cent rise in the segment’s assets to ₹2.59-lakh crore. This was due to periodical inflows in the banking system. Quarter-end outflows in December in the category are typically reversed in the subsequent month, i.e., January, the report added.

Income funds too reported net inflows of ₹5,900 crore after two consecutive months of outflows in November and December.

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