This, as against the popular negative perception on the fund management abilities of the country's largest fund management body, Mastershare '86 has defied gravity and emerged as the winner among the bunch.

However it should be noted, say analysts, that the fund was launched at a far lower sensitive index level which was at the level of 575.72 as on October 30, 1986. The Sensex has since then gained an astouding 460 per cent, with the Sensex at 3,218.91 levels as on January 20, 1999.

In an analysis of around 30 close-ended growth schemes done by the `Financial Express', it was found that close-ended growth schemes of mutual funds have reported dismal performance for the period December 31, 1997 to December 31, 1998 as compared to their open-ended counterparts.

Almost all close-ended schemes have their net asset values(NAV) below the par value of Rs 10. The only funds that have an NAV above Rs 10 is the Reliance Growth Fund with an NAV of Rs 13.36, Sundaram Growth Fund at Rs 10.78 and Mastershare '86 with an NAV of Rs 15.59 as on December 31, 1998.

Almost all these schemes are being traded at a huge discount, ranging from 20 to 50 per cent, to their NAVs. For example, the Canbonus scheme is listed at a discount of 11 per cent, Centurian Quantum at a discount of 22 per cent, Deposit I-Nit '95 at a discount of 30 per cent, Morgan Stanley Growth fund at a discount of 36.51 per cent, Indratna at a discount of 42 per cent and Taurus Newshare at a discount of 30 per cent to their prevailing NAV. Two schemes that have reported a return higher than 20 per cent for the year are Centurian Quantum at 32.3 per cent and Canexpo at 24.42 per cent.

Reliance Growth Fund is the only scheme with an NAV of Rs 13.36 outperforming the Sensex by an immense 17.86 per cent. The performance of some select cases in close-ended growth schemes ascompared to the fall in indices is better as the NAV of the schemes has not fallen as much as the market indices. The BSE-30 Sensex has fallen by 16.5 per cent, the BSE-200 by 11.4 per cent, the Crisil 500 by 8 per cent and the Natex by 14.34 per cent.

"Most schemes have been cleaning up their portfolio and getting into good equities over the last two years. But, the state of the market is bad and it gets highly arduous to beat the markets", said a fund manager.