12 mutuals funds' AUM dips in May

UTIMF is the largest loser with a Rs 775 crore drop

As many as 12 mutual fund houses out of the 23 in operation reported a drop in their assets under management (AUM) in May 2004.

According to market sources, a decline in assets reflects the turbulence and pessimism in both the equity and the debt markets during the month.

These fund houses have lost a total of around Rs 2,130.39 crore in May alone, according to data sourced from mutualfundsindia.com, a specialty website devoted to the domestic mutual fund industry.

The country's largest fund house, UTIMF, reported the largest drop in AUM, at around Rs 775 crore, followed by ING Vysya Mutual, which lost Rs 396.93 crore. Deutsche Mutual's AUM fell by Rs 209.84 core, Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund lost Rs 197.66 crore, HDFC Mutual Fund's AUM fell by Rs 123.44 crore and Sundaram Mutual lost Rs 86.58 crore in AUM.

The list of gainers during the month is led by Reliance Mutual Fund, which reported a Rs 938.93 crore growth in AUM, making it the largest gainer in assets in the domestic mutual fund industry for the second consecutive month.

Principal Mutual is a surprise entrant among the top gainers' list with an AUM growth of Rs 402.83 crore.

But industry observers say the growth is largely a reflection of the integration of the erstwhile Sun F&C Mutual Fund's assets after its acquisition.

DSP Merrill Lynch has shown a sizeable gain in its corpus after a long time. It has added Rs 388.29 crore, thanks to its rather impressive collections in the initial offers of DSPML Tiger Fund and the two options of DSPML Savings Plus Fund.

Two of the mutual funds promoted by the largest business groups in the county have also notched up sizeable gains "" Birla Mutual has reported an accretion of Rs 333.05 crore, followed by Tata Mutual with gains of Rs 145.07 crore.

Prudential ICICI Mutual, it seems, has emerged from the shadow of its recent scam to post a gain of Rs 143.83 crore in assets in May. The debt fund house Standard Chartered Mutual Fund has also added over Rs 131 crore in May.

Fund analysts say that the current month would be an acid test for fund houses with the equity markets largely expected to be driven by the Budget and the monsoons and the debt market too remaining largely volatile.