The momentum for asset growth in the mutual fund industry continues in the month of June as well as the combined asset under management (AUM) grew 4.99% in June to Rs 6.7 lakh crore, with Reliance MF alone contributing Rs 5,600 crore. In the peckomg order, Reliance Mutual Fund has maintained its number one position among fund houses with Rs 1.08 lakh crore of assets under management (AUM) in June, posting a 5.45% rise over the previous month.

Earlier, fund houses were reeling under pressure of a falling AUM number and were facing a huge profitabilty crisis. Asset management companies can charge operating expenses as a percentage of assets under management and with the dwindling AUM numbers. profitability was taking a hit. However, with the markets getting bouyant, things seem to have changed for the better.

Amongst the top funds, HDFC Mutual Fund came at the second position with Rs 78,197 crore of AUM in June by improving its May figures by 3.7%. ICICI Prudential with Rs 70,169 crore, UTI Mutual Fund with Rs 67,978 crore, and Birla Sun Life with Rs 56,282 crore occupied the following positions. The AUM of the number one fund house, Reliance MF, is expected to go up after it announced on Wednesday it had mopped up Rs 2,350 crore through a recently-concluded infrastructure scheme.

Speaking about this development, Rajan Krishnan, CEO, Baroda Pioneer AMC, said, ?June has been a month of consolidation for us. We have also expanded our product offering by recently launching, Baroda Pioneer Treasury Advantage Fund which helped us raise nearly 500 crores in the NFO.? LIC MF, Quantum and JM Financial MF also made double digit growth in AUM ranging between 10.8% to 13.3%.

The fund house said the collections were more than 100% of the combined industry NFO collections in the last 12 months. Inflows were mostly into fixed income schemes, said an analyst. In May there was a huge inflow into equity funds. There were around seven fund houses that saw a double digit growth and around nine of the 35 fund houses recorded negative growth in the AUM numbers.

Edelweiss Mutual Fund, though with a modest AUM of Rs 44.78 crore, posted a humongous 121.24% rise from the previous month. Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund and DBS Chola also made impressive growth rates of 19.7% and 16%, respectively.