In a communication to its three lakh unitholders, the fund has promised complete transparency. ``We have geared ourselves to face the coming millennium by closely tracking the markets and stricter performance appraisals of various schemes, simpler turnaround measures and complete transparency to our investors, as in the past. Some of our schemes are already showing an upward swing and our fund managers are working even harder to pull-in the others to profitability,'' says the letter.

The AMC currently manages eight schemes with a combined corpus of less than Rs 300 crore. The same stood at Rs 450 crore in 1995. The NAVs of all the schemes except RIPS '90 is below par. ``With restructuring of portfolios, we have achieved a limitedobjective whereby our NAVs do not fall as sharply as the market while they outperform the benchmarks in case of a rally. We are hopeful of getting rid of illiquid and small stocks in the next three months to generate better returns,'' said V K Joel, executive vice-president, PNB AMC.

``We have decided to communicate to our investors frequently. Investors have even got back to us with their suggestions. Some of them have been angry, which is justified, especially those who were sold our mutual fund products as an alternative to bank deposits,'' said Joel. We are in the process of putting together a software package which will help us achieve greater transparency and disclose NAVs on a daily basis,'' he added.

PNB MF has lined up at least three schemes for launch in this fiscal. Besides, it plans to launch an ELSS, if market conditions warrant. ``Despite the fact that our past schemes have not done well lately, we cannot keep looking at the past. We believe that the industry holds a great future since themarket is getting increasingly institutionalised. Our corpus is shrinking with redemption and we have to launch new schemes to buoy our assets. The problem with bank managed AMCs is that we cling to shares like fixed deposits and do not sell them immediately to cut losses,'' said Joel.All the three funds are open-end schemes. ``We have no problems starting with a small corpus. We will like to invest that corpus in good securities, perform and attract more money into these schemes. Assured return schemes are not on our agenda,'' he added.

``We have already seen a number of AMCs enter into a tieup with foreign asset managers. The trend is likely to filter down to public sector mutual funds. We are not averse to the idea of entering into a tieup with foreign AMCs.'' Joel said. ``These tieups can benefit a lot since our products can be marketed from the extensive network of bank branches,'' added Joel. Currently, funds face a major hurdle in marketing their funds since they lack sufficient manpower andmarketing outlets. ``This is precisely the advantage with UTI. Banks like PNB have branches spread through cities, towns and villages which will give an established base for marketing,'' said Joel.

Industry sources point out that PNB management had, at one time, planned to buy units from all the unitholders and close down the AMC since it was proving to be a non-viable option with a continuous erosion in the corpus.

``PNB Asset Management has come back from the brink and a lot hinges on the response to the AMC's forthcoming schemes,'' an industry observer added.