Two more close ended equity funds hit the market.
Investors are spoilt for choice when it comes to equity funds. With the rise in equity markets, at least one or two closed end fund NFOs are hitting the market every week.
Two fund houses – ICICI Prudential and LIC Nomura have come out with their NFOs of close-end equity funds. While LIC Nomura has launched its first close end diversified equity fund called LIC Nomura MF Diversified Equity Fund Series 1 (apart from RGESS), ICICI Prudential has launched the fifth series of its ICICI Prudential Value Fund.
LIC Nomura MF Diversified Fund Series 1 having a maturity period of 1100 days aims to generate capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of listed companies. The NFO of the scheme is currently open for subscription and will close on September 02. The fund manager seeks to ensure risk management through diversification across diverse set of stocks and sectors based on key economic trends. Keeping in mind historical and current financial condition of the company, quality of management and valuation, the stocks will be selected. The performance of the scheme would be benchmarked against S&P BSE 200. Nobutaka Kitajima and Ramnath Venkateswaran are the fund managers.
Similarly, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund has launched the fifth series of its Value Fund. The scheme has a maturity period of 1217 days and aims to seek capital appreciation by investing predominantly in well diversified portfolio of equity/equity-related instruments of companies through fundamental analysis. Benchmarked against S&P BSE 500, the minimum application amount would be Rs. 5000. Mrinal Singh, Atul Patel and Ashwin Jain will co-manage the fund.
In the past three months, 10 close ended equity funds have mopped up close to Rs. 1,700 crore from investors. It remains to be seen whether these funds live up to their expectations.
Besides, UTI Mutual Fund has launched an open ended equity scheme called UTI Multi Cap after merging UTI Contra Fund and UTI Services Industries Fund. The NFO opens and closes on August 25.
