Religare Mutual Fund, today announced the launch of its new fund, Religare Business Leaders Fund.
"An open-ended equity scheme, it seeks to generate capital appreciation by investing in companies which are leaders in their respective industry or industry segment," Religare Asset Management Company's Head of Equity Funds, Vetri Subramaniam, told reporters here.
These companies are expected to do better than others in their industry in all economic environments in terms of growth, margins and profitability, Subramaniam said.
The fund will invest in both the large-cap and mid-cap space. The fund offers both growth and dividend options. Units will be issued at Rs 10 per unit plus applicable load. There is no entry load charged for investments made through the SIP route. The fund is benchmarked to S&P CNX Nifty.
The ability of business leaders to survive the hard times, when marginal players are taking a beating and thrive in good times makes them an attractive long-term investment proposition and this fund is recommended for all investors as core holding for their investment portfolio, Religare Mutual Fund Chief Executive Officer, Saurabh Nanavati, said.
The fund will adopt a bottom-up and top-down approach to create a diversified portfolio of stocks aided by Religare AMCs proprietary stock categorisation philosophy. The fund universe will consist of leaders across sectors. In many industries or sectors (total of 38 as per AMFI) the leaders are mid-cap companies.
Post-acquisition of Lotus Mutual Fund in December 2008, this is the first equity fund launch from the Religare stable. Religare Mutual Fund had acquired Lotus Mutual Fund with roughly Rs 3,500-crore in AUM of which Rs 2,000-crore were in FMPs maturing by March 2009," Nanavati said.
As of June 2009, Religare MF is Rs 10,030-crore in average AUM and has risen rapidly in AUM rankings in the last 6-months to come into the top 15 as of June 2009.
The financial services space and asset management business within that space is a key focus area for Religare Enterprises and the group is looking at growing this business rapidly through organic and inorganic opportunities, he said.
Religare Mutual Fund today has a presence in 56 cities through 60 own branches and sales staff and is aiming to further expand this reach to 100 cities in the next 9 months.
In a tough operating environment, the promoters have infused an additional Rs 35-crore in equity capital on July 13, in addition to Rs 37-crore infused in December 2008, Nanavati said.
While the AMC is breaking even operationally for the last 2-months, the new capital will be utilised for expanding existing business operations, setting up new infrastructure, investing in new business opportunities and a brand-building campaign, he said.
Speaking about the newly-introduced norms of no entry-loads in the MF industry, Nanavati commented that norms are changing globally in the financial selling place and disclosures are becoming mandatory in various parts of the world. The decision has already been taken by SEBI and we need to look ahead."
The fund opened for subscription on July 10 and will close for subscription on July 31.
