Fund Street braces for new offering rush

Mutual funds are set to launch a slew of new schemes. Two top global asset management companies (AMCs), American International Group (AIG) and JP Morgan Asset Management are launching their maiden schemes in India in the forthcoming days, after having received Sebi's approval.

The US-based JP Morgan will introduce its first scheme in the country on Friday, named `JP Morgan India Equity Fund', a multicap diversified fund.

The New Fund Offering (NFO) period is from April 19 to May 18. Harshad Patwardhan is the fund manager, said a senior official of JP Morgan Asset Management.

Global insurance and financial services firm, AIG will launch its first equity scheme named AIG India Equity Fund by this month end.

Another fund that is lining up its first product is the UK-based Dawnay Day AV. The fund house recently received an in-principle approval from Sebi for entering the mutual fund business in India.

"We are working on our first product, but right now we are putting together our human resources and infrastructure in place." a senior official of Dawnay Day said.

Last week, Fidelity launched its `International Opportunities Fund', which would invest 35 per cent of its corpus in international equities with a focus on Asia. The NFO is open till the end of this month.

DWS Investments (DWS), the retail mutual fund arm of Deutsche Bank, today launched the `DWS Capital Protection Oriented Fund'. Duetsche Asset Management India is planning an aggressive roll-out of DWS-structured and capital-protected funds in the next 18 months.

"The recent market volatility has boosted investor demand for products which gravitate towards capital protection. Hence, it is timely for us to launch these products now to respond to market needs, as well as to provide more choices for the investors." said Suresh Soni, CIO at DeAM India.