Retail MF folios gain 13 lakh in March quarter

Retail investor accounts rose over 13 lakh in mutual fund industry in the quarter ended March 2015, taking their total number to 3.99 crore, a 2-year high.
The increase was 3.42 per cent, up from 1.69 per cent growth in the previous quarter.
They continued to account for 96 per cent of the total folio base of 4.17 crore as of the March quarter.
The industry saw a jump of 14.63 lakh folios (3.63 per cent) in the latest quarter, driven mainly by addition in retail equity fund folios, a Crisil release stated.
The equity category logged 11.82 lakh additions at 3.08 crore folios, higher than the corresponding figure of 6.03 lakh in the preceding quarter. The equity market benchmark CNX Nifty gained 2.5 per cent in the said quarter.

The high net worth individual segment saw a rebound of 8.21 per cent or 1.09 lakh folios to 14.31 lakh compared with a rise of 0.99 lakh in the preceding quarter. The rise in total HNI folios was led by the equity category (46 per cent of total HNI folio base), which reported an addition of 0.85 lakh to 6.61 lakh, it said.

Debt fund folios continued to gain ground, ending at 68.35 lakh in the March quarter compared with 67.52 lakh in the previous one. Within debt funds, retail folios rose to a record of 61 lakh.
The category saw an addition of 70,491 retail folios in the March quarter compared with 16,375 folio closures in the previous quarter.

The retail and HNI segments added 6,030 folios in the latest quarter as against 6,781 in the previous quarter as the category benefited from rising hopes of a rate cut by the RBI.
It's a different story for gold exchange traded funds which suffered 4.46 per cent decline or 21,742 folio closure to end at 4.66 lakh folios.
The retail segment saw a closure of 20,265 folios in the latest quarter as investors shied away from the category due to subdued performance of the underlying asset. Domestic gold prices, represented by the Crisil gold index, fell over 3 per cent in the quarter ended March 2015, the Crisil release said.

Of the Rs 2.04 lakh crore of retail investments in equity-oriented mutual funds, Rs 1.19 lakh crore was held for over 24 months.
Corporates continued to dominate mutual fund AUM space with 46 per cent share in March 2015, down from 47 per cent in December 2014. HNIs were the second-biggest contributor with a 29 per cent share.