Crossed full-year target of Rs 8,000 cr AUM by Dec quarter: PGIM MF

PGIM India Mutual Fund has crossed the full-year 2020-21 AUM target of Rs 8,000 crore by the December quarter, a senior company official has said.

The fund house official also said while all other fund houses booked heavy losses on the equity side in the year, PGIM booked a net gain of Rs 300 crore from selling equity funds. This is the highest ever it has booked even as the industry as a whole lost a whopping Rs 10,000 crore in the year-to-date.

Our total AUM (assets under management) has already crossed the full year target of Rs 8,000 crore as of December 31, 2020. This was a target that we had set internally for March. Total AUM includes the PMS, equity and advisory businesses, Ajit Menon, chief executive, PGIM India MF told PTI on Monday.

Menon also said PGIM's first international fund has crossed the USD 100-million AUM mark by end-December.

As of December 31, our mutual fund AUM stood at Rs 5,340 crore, a growth of 32.8 per cent over Rs 4,020 crore in December 2019. Since then we added Rs 300 crore in AUM in the past eight days, Menon said, adding this had been on the back of a stupendous rally in the equity market.

Of the total AUM, Rs 2,770 crore are in equities, which grew nearly three times from March 2020 when it stood at Rs 958 crore. And in the first eight days of January the same has gone up to Rs 2,930 crore, Menon said.

Last October, Menon had told PTI that he had set an internal AUM target of Rs 7,500-8,000 crore by March and an equity portfolio target of Rs 2,000 crore when it was Rs 1,600 crore.

Whether the rally in the market-- with Sensex being at spitting distance from scaling the 50,000 mount -- is sustainable and reflects the real economy, Menon said, the market is awash in liquidity and this will continue for some more time as India-focused funds are yet to pump money into the country.

Emerging markets are getting lots of money which is driving the market since the March washout. And the India-dedicated funds are yet to open their taps but will happen very soon. The markets always discount the immediate to medium term future. They are now looking at FY23 and not FY22, he said.

But he was quick to add that their house view is cautiously optimistic as it is not the right time time to pick more equities but the best time to diversify towards which they will be launching a balanced advantage fund on January 15.

The proposed open-ended dynamic asset allocation fund should help an investor better allocate assets, he said.

The 44-player MF industry closed 2020 with a 17 per cent growth to record high of over Rs 31.02 lakh crore as of December.

PGIM India is the fully-owned subsidiary of the US-based Prudential Group's PGIM (Prudential Global Investment Managers) which manages over USD 1.4 trillion in AUM, making it the 1oth largest fund house globally.