FUND PICK: Birla Sun Life Top 100 Fund

Bottom-up approach paying well

Birla Sun Life Top 100 Fund, which has been ranked in the top 30 percentile (CRISIL Fund Rank 1 or 2) for the last 14 quarters, aims at medium-to-long-term capital appreciation. The fund, which is managed by Mahesh Patil, was launched in October 2005, and had quarterly average assets under management (AUM) of Rs 1,529 crore as on June 30 this year. It mainly invests in equity and equity-related instruments, with minimum 65 per cent exposure to top 100 companies, as measured by market capitalisation.

The scheme’s investment and stock selection strategy is to follow a bottom-up approach, with emphasis on identifying companies having a strong competitive position in good businesses, and quality managements.

The fund has outperformed both its benchmark (CNX Nifty Index) and the category (average performance of schemes defined under the large cap equity category of CRISIL Mutual Fund Ranking – June 2015) across various time frames (see chart). Further, it has outpaced its benchmark and peers during bear and bull phases, except post the global financial crisis – (between March 31, 2009 and December 31, 2010), where it lagged the category by a thin margin.

A sum of Rs 1,000 invested in the fund at inception would have grown to Rs 4,241 by September 21, 2015 – an annualised return of 15.69 per cent vis-à-vis the peer group’s 15.09 per cent (Rs 4,027) and the benchmark’s 12.90 per cent (Rs 3,331).

An investor taking the systematic investment plan (SIP) route since inception would have generated 14.88 per cent returns on a compounded basis vis-à-vis the benchmark’s 9.89 per cent (see table).

The fund has also delivered higher risk-adjusted returns, which is visible in its Sharpe ratio. For the three years ended September 21, 2015, the fund’s Sharpe ratio stood at 1.19 whereas the category’s stood at 0.89.

The fund has lower exposure (81.33 per cent) to CRISIL-defined large-cap stocks, compared with peers (88.77 per cent) for the three-year period ended August 2015. Despite lower exposure to large cap stocks and relatively higher exposure to small and mid-cap stocks (19 per cent) vis-a-vis peers (11 per cent), its volatility (beta of 0.94) is in line with peers (beta of 0.95), which indicates its ability to manage risk effectively. The fund has consistently held 19 stocks for last three years, with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Infosys, Reliance Industries and ITC generating maximum returns.

At a sectoral level, based on three years average period ending August 31, 2015, the fund has the highest exposure to banks, software and pharmaceuticals, which have delivered superior returns of 19.73 per cent, 24.10 per cent and 32.74 per cent, respectively, as represented by their respective CNX-based benchmarks. These sectors have outperformed the benchmark, CNX Nifty, which has delivered 14.87 per cent.