``We bring to the Indian investor world class services in terms of quality of management of funds, investor services, prompt responses, efficiency, quick redemptions among other quality services,'' said the chairman, Dundee Investment Management & Research, Danesh Varma.

According to the vice-president, Goodman & Company, Rohit Sehgal: ``In Asia other than Japan, there are signs of recovery with stability in the foreign exchange markets, declining interest rates and recovery of markets. The Indian markets have responded favourably to the budget, the interestrates have fallen, and the valuations in the market are very attractive as compared to the earnings potential of the companies. If the Indians want the North-American investors to come to the markets they would have to wait for another year or so because the north-American investor has burnt his hands badly in the emerging markets in the last year.''

``Nevertheless, the emerging markets have not lost their dynamism as an asset class and will always be a part of the foreign portfolio in order to diversify,'' said Sehgal.

The Dundee mutual fund had decided to launch a gilt fund before the announcements but would like to launch a bond fund, a real estate fund and a bullion fund. Both the real estate and bullion fund would require approvals from Sebi, RBI and the Ministry of Finance, for which the mutual fund has already made presentations to all the three, respectively.

Kotak Mahindra mutual fund had plans to launch a real estate mutual fund but had faced a number of hurdles. The real estate fund of theDundee mutual fund plans to invest 50 per cent of the corpus in mortgages and the remaining 50 per cent in real estate listed equities like the housing finance companies, the hotels (which own real estate), old jute companies (with have real estate assets). As compared to the credit rating, the mutual fund is in talks with the General Insurance Company for providing insurance cover to the fund.

For the bullion fund, the Varma said that gold is the only dollar linked asset which has given huge returns. According to Varma, the value of gold has fallen by only 20 per cent since 1995 compared to a 70 per cent fall in the rupee, which makes it the best hedging instrument.

The total assets under management through Dundee Investment Management & Research as on March 31, 1998 exceed $ 5.5 billion. The Dundee mutual funds family includes Dundee Capital Markets, a Sebi approved merchant banker and Dundee Financial Services, a leasing and hire purchase non-banking finance company registered with RBI and DundeeBancoprp (India) Private Ltd, a restricted money manager. The Dundee Investment Management & Research Private is the asset management company approved by Sebi, is the manager of Dundee mutual funds appointed by the Dundee Trust Private and sponsored by the Dundee Bancorp Inc, of Canada.