StanChart MF eyes small cities

Standard Chartered Mutual Fund is planning to tap smaller cities in a big way by marketing its products through various distribution channels.

"We are planning to come up with alternate channels for business development in the smaller cities, where there is huge potential," said Naval Bir Kumar, managing director, Standard Chartered Mutual Fund.

The mutual fund, which currently has more than 15 offices across the country, plans to distribute mutual fund products through its team of independent financial advisors. The fund has over Rs 8,200 crore assets under management.

"The debt market has returned 50 per cent over the last five years and will continue to grow by at least 30 per cent in the coming years," said Kumar.

The mutual fund recently launched an initial public offering of its pension fund plan, under its Grindlays Government Securities Fund.

The public issue of mutual fund units opened on February 24, 2004, and closes on March 17.

"Ever since the government allowed pension funds to allow up to 70 per cent of incremental accretions of PFs to be invested in special funds that invest in 100 per cent government securities, we are waiting for a suitable opportunity to launch this fund. We expect this March to provide us with the opportunity of purchase government securities at slightly higher yields," said Kumar.

The PF plan carries a feature called 'defined maturity date' that has been specially designed to make transacting with mutual funds easier.

The new featuer will allow PF fund managers to pre-define a date for automatic redemption of their units and thus allow better planning of their cash flows.

With this feature, PFs also get the advantage of investing in an open-ended fund along with the benefit of getting a pre-defined maturity date of their choice.

StanChart Mutual is focussing on debt markets and is known for its innovative debt mutual fund products. The fund was first to introduce a short-term fund, a dynamic bond fund and a medium-term fund.