ICICI Pru, HDFC and Axis top three players in direct equity assets

ICICI Prudential MF has the highest direct equity AUM in the MF industry, shows an analysis of monthly AUM disclosure of 30 fund houses by Cafemutual. Of the total equity assets of Rs. 97,700 crore, direct equity AUM of the fund house accounts for Rs. 34,000 crore as on March 2021, which is 35% of the total equity assets.

HDFC MF and Axis MF follow ICICI Prudential MF in terms of direct equity assets with AUM of Rs. 29,630 crore and Rs. 25,462 crore, respectively. While HDFC MF’s direct equity AUM accounts for 30% of its total equity assets, direct equity assets of Axis MF was 26% of its total equity assets as of March 2021.

Next is Kotak Mahindra MF with direct equity AUM of Rs.24000 crore. India’s largest fund house, SBI occupies fifth spot in direct equity AUM with assets of Rs. 23,000 crore.

Please note that we have included pure equity funds and ELSS to calculate direct equity AUM.

In terms of proportion of direct AUM to the total assets of the fund house, SBI MF tops the chart among top ten fund houses with 58% of its assets coming from direct plan. Of the total assets of Rs.5 lakh crore, the fund house has direct AUM of 2.9 lakh crore.

HDFC MF (46%), ICICI Prudential MF (44%), Aditya Birla Sun Life MF (51%) and Nippon India MF (55%) also have a similar share of direct plans in their total AUM.

Among the top 30 fund houses, PPFAS MF has the highest direct plan AUM to total AUM ratio at 70%.

UTI MF, Mirae Asset MF, Franklin Templeton MF, Sundaram MF, Edelweiss MF, Canara Robeco MF, BNP Paribas MF and Principal MF have comparatively lower dependence on direct plans. Their direct plan AUM to the total AUM ratio was less than 35%.

The market share of direct schemes, which was reportedly around 40% in 2009 has risen to 46% in March 2021 (according to our analysis of data of top 30 mutual funds).

Here’s a list of top mutual funds with a break up of their AUM:

*Average percentage