Market regulator Sebi?s new norms requiring mandatory monthly disclosures pertaining to their assets under management (AUM) will marginally push up compliance costs for fund houses. ?There will be a cost element involved and fund houses will have to analyse the same over a period of time. The compliance and back office teams will have to work a little more now,? said Jimmy Patel, CEO, Quantum MF.

In its circular released on Monday, Sebi has asked fund houses to disclose monthly AUM from different categories of schemes, AUM from places beyond top-15 cities, contribution of sponsor and its associates in AUM, contribution from different types of investors including both retail and corporate, state-wise contribution and AUM from sponsors and non-sponsor entities.

Additionally, fund houses have to record and publish voting details on a quarterly basis and obtain auditor’s certification on voting reports disclosed by them, besides recording the rationale for the voting decision. Some fund officials say the additional disclosures won’t benefit investors. ?Investors are primarily concerned about the scheme performance and related details such as NAV and portfolio holdings. Why should they be bothered about how much AUM is coming from B15 cities or the AUM breakup according to investor type and schemes?? said a senior fund official, on condition of anonymity.

A few industry observers fear that putting out too much information into the public domain can work against the fund house. ?Posting AUM details on the websites could be unsuitable as it would tantamount to divulging sensitive information to competitors,? said Arvind Sethi, CEO, Tata MF. He added that instead of revealing the AUM break-up publicly, Sebi could have asked the fund houses for the information directly. However, some experts said these disclosures are a step in the right direction. ?The idea behind introducing these measures is to track the impact of the measures introduced by Sebi in September 2012 pertaining to issues such as B15 cities,? said Dhirendra Kumar, CEO, Value Research.

Sebi is now likely to notify the norms for net worth requirement and seed capital in the coming weeks. The net worth will be hiked to R50 crore while the seed capital norms will mandate investment of 1% of the scheme AUM subject to a maximum of R50 lakh in all open-ended schemes. Fees for new fund offerings (NFO) is also likely to be jacked up from R1 lakh to at least R2 lakh.