``The fund is likely to be launched by year-end once the arrangement for custodians is in place,'' said T P Raman, managing director, Sundaram Newton Asset Management Company. Currently, Newton is negotiating with custodians in India. Sundaram Newton AMC will be the advisors to the fund, which will be an open-end scheme.

If the India Equity Fund manages to mobilise and pump in the money by the first fortnight of December, the fund is likely to fetch scrips atattractive valuations. Going by the past trend, equity markets have been traditionally at their bottom on profit-booking by foreign institutional investors due to year-end considerations.

Meanwhile, the growth fund from Sundaram Newton AMC will go open-end from November this year. ``The fund could have gone open-end earlier but since Sebi had come out with a standard offer document last year, we decided to file the offer document again with the regulatory body,'' said Raman.

The AMC has also decided to embark upon an advertising and marketing drive for its two funds -- Sundaram Bond Saver and Sundaram Growth Fund. The AMC has already set up an office in Delhi and Hyderabad and is in the process of setting up an office in Mumbai. ``We have an ad-spend budget for three months, starting end of October when we plan to market our bond fund and make announcements once the growth fund goes open-end,'' added Raman.

Some private sector mutual funds have embarked on an intensive advertisement campaigns in thepast few months to attract moolah in their schemes. Market analysts point out that a sustained marketing campaign in beginning to show results with a number of funds attracting fresh inflows in the last six months.

The asset management company has also appointed an agency for survey of investors in the age group of 35-40 years. The survey is aimed at judging the importance this age group attaches to their long-term financial needs. ``We intend to find out how much attention they pay to their post-retirement needs and other requirements like higher education of children. Depending on the response, we plan to launch a long-term savings fund,'' said Raman.

Raman is of the opinion that the mutual fund industry is poised for a big leap. ``The transparency and innovation in the industry, coupled with the institutional nature of the market is likely to help in the growth of the fund industry,'' pointed out Raman. Regarding the equity markets, Raman believes that only some clear signals from the government ofIndia can help the markets move up. ``The government needs to take some firm steps. The recent talk of investments in the infrastructure sector help buoy the prices of cyclical stocks. These should transform into some concrete action since infrastructure has a tremendous potential,'' he opined. ``However, the recent floods in northern states may prove to be a dampener since it will brings down the food production for the current fiscal,'' he cautioned.

Raman defends his Rs 10-crore equity fund's investments in as many as 46 stcoks. ``The fund is not over-diversified since we have a good mix of value investments and sectors which are currently doing well like pharma, FMCG and information technology. While the latter will continue to deliever returns, the cyclical stocks will generate returns once the economy shows signs of revival,'' he said.

The AMC, unlike a number of its counterparts, does not plan to launch a short-term debt fund. The last one year has seen the launch of as many as nine quasimoney-market mutual funds. ``To start with, the secondary market for debt in Chennai lacks depth and there is no market for short-term securities. On the other hand, transactions in Mumbai involve a lot of money and short-term debt fund is a high-transaction one. The fund is economical only when you have a corpus of Rs 300-400 crore,'' Raman said.