Sundaram MF in rejig mode

Sundaram Mutual Fund has embarked on a restructuring exercise, whereby it is planning to introduce two equity funds, while retiring two debt schemes.

Managing director T P Raman said the company will introduce two equity funds "" Leadership Fund and Star Fund "", while deciding to retire Select Debt Schemes for three and five years.

Leadership Fund will invest in leading scrips of various sectors, while the Star Fund will be investing in stocks which "has potential unlock values" in near future.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved the introduction of the Leadership Fund. The prospectus for Star Fund will be filed with Sebi soon, the company said.

Elaborating on Star Fund, Raman said the proposed scheme will not restrict its invest horizon to market capitalisation. Rather, it would track an invest in the stocks which were migrating from mid cap to large cap and small cap to mid cap. And, therefore, there would be no cannibalisation of interest between the proposed one and Sundaram Select Midcap, an existing product dedicated to the mid-cap sector.

Raman said the company decided to retire the Select Debt Schemes for three years and five years as they had lost relevance. The company will ask the investors of these schemes to switch over to the other products of the company. These scheme had selected investors and Sebi had been appraised of the company's decision, he added.

According to Raman, the company will not introduce any further schemes in the debt segment as all the possible choices were available in the existing boutique comprising Sundaram Income Plus, Sundaram Select Debt (short term and dynamic asset plan), and Bond Saver.

The view of not launching any further scheme held good for the equity segment as well.

"We don't want to confuse the investors with more equity schemes," he said adding that the spectrum of the products consisted of Sundaram Select Focus, Sundaram Select Midcap, Sundaram Growth and Sundaram Tax Saver. The company has two hybird products, Sundaram Balanced and Sundaram Monthly Income Plan.

Sundaram witnessed negative growth in March as withdrawal of money was widespread across the fund houses. The assets under management stood at Rs 2,200 crore after recording a withdrawal of nearly Rs 300 crore in March. However, Raman said that the collection of funds had started picking up in the new financial year.