“We have mobilized Rs 9,700 crore with participation from 4 lakh retail investors and 15,000 distribution partners selling the NFO,” says an ICICI MF spokesperson.
The fund will have the flexibility to invest in a mix of large, mid and small cap stocks without any market cap bias and will use its inhouse proprietary model for the same.
“Sentiment towards equity investing is positive. The fund house has a good track record of managing funds across the spectrum,” says Kaustubh Belapurkar, Director (Fund Research), Morningstar India.
There have been a flurry of new fund offer (NFO) from fund house to fill up gaps in existing product portfolio or to get thematic or international offerings to investors.
Investors have been putting money into equity mutual funds for four consecutive months since March 2021. Data from AMFI shows that they have added Rs 28,623 crore into equity mutual funds in the last four months.
Earlier in January ICICI Prudential Business Cycle Fund raised Rs 4198 crore, while Axis Special Situation Fund raised Rs 2169 crore in Dec 2020, while ABSL Multicap Fund garnered Rs 2112 crore in May 2021.
The highest amount raised by an NFO was in January 2008, by the erstwhile Reliance Mutual Fund when its thematic fund
raised Rs 5660 crore in its NFO. Subsequently the fund was merged with Reliance Vision Fund in 2013.
Private sector banks have been very aggressive in selling equity mutual funds to their rich clients say distributors given the high returns investors earned in the last one year. Many distributors and banks are known to churn investors money out of old mutual fund schemes to allocate to a new fund offer. “Top Indian private sector banks and their wealth management teams have sold this NFO to their investor base as they like the track record of the fund house,” says a CEO at a domestic fund house .
Given the elevated valuations and sharp run up in the markets many distributors recommend a flexi cap fund that has the option to invest across large, mid and small cap stocks without any restriction. The fund house will use an in house market cap allocation model to decide allocation.
