JM to focus on equity

JM Financial Asset Management Private Limited, which had so far focused on debts rather than equity, is now planning to have an equity corpus of Rs 1,000 crore in the future course of time.

At present, out of the entire corpus of Rs 4,200 crore that the asset management company has, Rs 4,000 crore comes from debt and the remaining from equity.

Speaking on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the launch of JM Emerging Leaders Fund, J K Modi, director of JM Financial Asset Management Private Limited, said that they would be increasing their focus on equity now.

Currently, equity contributes to only five per cent of the company's total corpus. The asset management company, therefore, will also be launching two new equity funds this year.

"We are looking at having an equity corpus of Rs 1,000 crore. But we are not sure whether this will be within the next six months, one year or the next two years," he added.

From the present fund "� JM Emerging Leaders Fund "� the company expects a minimum corpus of Rs 200 crore. On details regarding the two new funds that the company will be coming out with, Modi said that they are still in the inception stage and nothing has been finalised as yet.

Sandeep Neema, fund manager for JM Emerging Leaders Fund, said that the new fund will have an asset allocation of between 80 and 100 per cent in equity and 0-20 per cent in debt.

The company is expecting an investor base of one lakh for this fund with around 5,000 being from Andhra Pradesh. The offer for the equity-oriented growth scheme commenced on June 16 and closes on July 4, 2005.