The fund house claims to have received 7500 applications.
Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund has raised Rs. 89 crore from the NFO of its two series of Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme (RGESS) called Birla Sun Life Focused Equity Fund Series 1 and Series 2. While the first series has collected close to Rs. 50 crore during its NFO period, the second series mopped up Rs. 49 crore.
RGESS is designed to provide 50% deduction from income for investments of up to Rs 50,000 which is over and above deduction of Rs. one lakh for first-time investors under Section 80CCG of Income Tax Act.
The fund house claims to have received applications from 7500 investors through these funds. In a press release, A. Balasubramanian, CEO, Birla Sun Life AMC MF has said, “Our experience with the RGESS eligible NFOs has been very encouraging. True to the purpose of RGESS, the response we have received is a welcome sign of interest in equity mutual funds from the retail investor. As a fund house, the focus of our investment philosophy remains on people, processes, and product to ensure true-to-label fund management and delivery of consistency in experience to our investors. We look forward to provide our investors with sharp product propositions offering them good avenues for wealth creation.”
Benchmarked against CNX 100, both the funds aim to create value by investing in shares of handpicked companies from BSE 100, CNX 100 and PSU Navratnas, Maharatnas and Miniratnas (RGESS eligible securities). Anil Shah is the Fund Manager.
Both the schemes follow a blend of bottom up approach (for stock selection) and top down approach (for sector allocation). The fund manager would primarily focus on long term growth prospects for identifying stocks. The objective would be to identify businesses with superior growth prospects and strong management available at reasonable valuations and offering higher risk adjusted returns.
Last year, the fund house has launched Birla Sun Life Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme – Series 1 which has delivered an absolute return of 19% over a one year period, shows Value Research data.
This year, five RGESS schemes have collected close to Rs. 212 crore from their NFOs. Other fund houses like HDFC Rajiv Gandhi Equity Scheme Series II mobilized Rs. 60 crore from its NFO. Similarly, ICICI Prudential Equity Saving Scheme Series 1 and LIC Nomura Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme 2 have collected Rs. 45 crore and Rs. 15 crore respectively.
