Buoyed by the recent stock market rally, assets of the mutual fund industry hit an all-time high of Rs 637,609.41 crore in May.
Market experts said this rise was mainly because of the spike in the stock market by over 50 per cent in the last one month and fresh inflows in liquid funds.
A Balasubramanium, chief investment officer, Birla Sun Life mutual fund, said, “Equity markets went up sharply, thereby improving valuations significantly. Also, there were fresh inflows in equity schemes after a long time.”
The largest fund house, Reliance mutual fund, registered 16 per cent growth in its average assets under management (AUM) to Rs 1,02,730.16 crore in May compared with the April figure of Rs 88,387.99 crore.
The second-largest fund house, HDFC Mutual Fund, grew 18 per cent to Rs 75,406.10 crore, compared with the previous month’s figure of Rs 63,880.63 crore.
Baroda Pioneer saw the sharpest rise in assets of 85 per cent in May compared with April, followed by Taurus mutual fund, which grew 73 per cent.
JP Morgan and Kotak Mahindra registered growths of 42.5 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively.
Even new fund offers have started improving their performance. For instance, ICICI Prudential Target Returns fund has collected Rs 800 crore.
Sundeep Sikka, chief investment officer of Reliance Capital Asset Management Company, said, “We have seen an increase in participation by retail investors due to improvement in market sentiments.”
Among the top five funds, ICICI Prudential Mutual fund saw its AUM grow 17 per cent to Rs 65,549.86 crore.
UTI registered growth in assets by 16.4 per cent to Rs 63437.87 crore, followed by Birla Sun Life mutual fund, which increased its assets by 9 per cent to Rs 56,586.02 crore.
