India?s mutual funds (MFs) have donned the crash-gear, it seems. Despite the market mayhem, assets managed by MFs have dipped by a marginal Rs 2,200 crore, or 0.4%. As on January 31, they had assets worth Rs 5,52,000 crore under management from Rs 5,54,000 crore, including fund of funds, from a month ago, says a report of rating agency Crisil.
S&P CNX Nifty lost more than 16% in January 2008 over the previous month. ?The assets under management (AUM) by mutual funds were, by and large, resilient to the stock market crash,? the rating agency said.
New investors continue to enter the equities market at low levels and look out for buying opportunities, new fund offers and debt funds. Of the 32 fund houses, 14 posted an increase in AUMs in January. Despite the market fall in January, mutual funds bought Rs 7,700 crore more equities. They bought shares worth Rs 3,000 crore in December 2007.
Reliance Mutual Fund continued to possess the largest corpus of AUM in January at Rs 77,200 crore, while ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund followed with Rs 64,100 crore, pushing UTI Mutual Fund with Rs 52,700 crore to the third position.
HDFC Mutual Fund and Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund with AUMs of Rs 43,800 crore and Rs 36,000 crore secured the fourth and fifth places, respectively. Among the top five fund houses, the AUMs of ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund and Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund increased by Rs 7,300 crore and Rs 4,100 crore, respectively, in January. Lotus India Mutual Fund’s AUM went up by 42% in January to Rs 10,100 crore.