Mutual funds monthly income plans (MIP) assets fall 26% despite robust returns
Assets of monthly income plans (MIP) shrunk one-fourth their size in 2012 over the year-ago period as long-term investors in the schemes redeemed their investment owing to poor returns by MIP schemes in 2010 and 2011.
MIP assets shrunk 26% to R9,691 crore in 2012 compared with R13,173 crore in 2011. Assets of most schemes fell 30-40% with the assets of the largest scheme Reliance MIP falling 35%. Of 59 MIP schemes, 44 saw a decline in assets, according to data collated from Value Research.
With the benchmark equity indices giving returns of over 25% in 2012 and debt markets also yielding good returns, these funds were in a sweet spot in the year. MIPs with equity component of less than 30% gave average returns of about 13% in 2012 compared with subdued returns of 1.56% in 2011 and 7.5% in 2010, according to Morningstar India.
“Considering that interest rates were expected to fall in 2012, investors should have pumped in money in these schemes. But investors’ decision was swayed by past returns,” said Akshay Gupta, CEO, Peerless MF. According to experts, MIP investors typically invest for the long term and they overlooked this near-term opportunity to profit from falling interest rates. MIPs are debt products with an 80:20 allocation towards debt. Some aggressive schemes, however, could even allocate 35-40% of the portfolio towards equity.
According to market observers, it makes sense for investors to invest into pure fixed income products in 2012 as most
