Fund pick: Franklin India Prima Plus Fund

A prime performer

Launched on September 29, 1994, Franklin India Prima Plus Fund is classified under the diversified category of the CRISIL Mutual Fund Ranking. It has been ranked in the top 30 percentile (CRISIL Fund Rank 1 or 2) over the past eight consecutive quarters ended June 2016.

The fund aims at providing growth of capital plus regular dividend through a diversified portfolio of equities, fixed income securities and money market instruments. It is managed by Anand Radhakrishnan and R Janakiraman, and had quarterly average assets under management of Rs 7,638 crore as of June 2016.

Superior performance
Franklin India Prima Plus has been a consistent outperformer. It has bettered the category (funds ranked under the diversified category in June 2016 CRISIL Mutual Fund Ranking) and the benchmark - Nifty 500- across all time frames under analysis. Its three-year annualised returns were 26.49 per cent compared with the benchmark's 16.83 per cent.

Not only has the fund managed to protect downside in bear phases but has also given positive returns during the European crisis (December 2010 to June 2013), while the category and the benchmark posted negative returns. During the recent Chinese slowdown, the fund generated higher alpha than the category and the benchmark.

An investment of Rs 1,000 in the fund on September 29, 1994 would have grown to Rs 48,081 (compounded annualised returns of 19.40 per cent) on 29 July, 2016. A similar investment in the category and the benchmark would have grown to around Rs 29,902 (16.83 per cent) and Rs 6,735 (9.12 per cent), respectively.

Similarly, Rs 1,000 invested per month in the fund since inception via systematic investment plan (SIP) totalling Rs 2.6 lakh would have grown to Rs 47,21,246 by 29 July, 2016 at 22.40 per cent annualised returns. In comparison, a similar amount invested in the benchmark would have returned Rs 13,05,332 at 13.05 per cent.

Portfolio analysis
The fund has maintained a blend of both large cap and small & midcap stocks over the last three years. The exposure to large cap stocks has varied between 62 per cent and 71 per cent and small and midcap exposure between 22 per cent and 31 per cent approximately.

As of June 2016, the fund had an exposure to 62 stocks across 20 sectors.

Over the last three years ended June 2016, the top five sectors constituted 56.15 per cent of the fund's portfolio. Over this period, banking sector on an average had the highest exposure of 24.20 per cent followed by pharmaceuticals (9.96 per cent), software (8.90 per cent), auto ancillaries (5.84 per cent) and telecom-service (5.56 per cent).

The fund has consistently held 26 stocks for the last three years; the average exposure of these stocks over three years accounts for 60 per cent of the total portfolio. Top holdings among the consistently held stocks include HDFC Bank with average exposure of 5.77 per cent followed by Infosys (5.44 per cent), Bharti Airtel (5.14 per cent), ICICI Bank (4.89 per cent) and IndusInd Bank (3.34 per cent).