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Showing a strong surge in retail investor interest, top fund house Reliance Mutual Fund has seen the number of its new 'Systematic Investment Plans' grow three-times to 50,000 per month.
Mostly preferred by small investors, SIP allows investment of a fixed and small sum on a monthly basis or other regular intervals in a mutual fund scheme.
Reliance MF is run by Reliance Capital Asset Management Company (RCAM), which is part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's financial services arm Reliance Capital.
"On an average we are getting commitments of Rs 600 crore per month by adding 50,000 new SIPs to our portfolio.
"A large amount of these SIPs have been added in B-15 cities as we are seeing a large participation from smaller towns and areas. We would like to reach out to maximum retail investors and are focused to double this number," RCAM CEO Sundeep Sikka told PTI.
B-15 Cities are the smaller cities and towns across the country beyond the top-15 cities including metros like New Delhi, Mumbai Kolkata and Chennai.
The company tripled its new SIP count to 50,000 per month in December, while adding more than two lakh SIPs in the first nine months of the current fiscal till December 2014.
The total SIPs in the industry stood at around 70 lakh till December 2014, with Reliance MF having 17% share -- the highest retail share of SIPs.
The mutual fund industry registered a growth of 21%, up from 57 lakh SIPs to 69 lakh SIPs during March-December 2014.
The total SIP count of Reliance MF rose from about 10 lakh as on March 31, 2014 to over 12 lakh by December.
The company said it held over 700 investor education programmes to reach out to retail investors and help them participate in the Indian stock markets through the MF route.
"We have reached out to over 25,000 participants across 100 locations across the country. We believe that the next level of growth in MF will be driven by B-15 cities and we would be extending all our support to investors in these towns and cities to benefit from the expertise of the MF industry," Sikka said.
RCAM registered a 49% growth in its profit to Rs 126 crore and 23% growth in average AUM (Asset Under Management) to Rs 1,26,069 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2014.
As on December 31, 2014, it had a total of 60 schemes comprising of 24 equity oriented schemes, 28 debt oriented schemes, seven exchange traded funds and one Fund of Funds.
