Investors in debt mutual funds have had it tough over the past 2-3 years. After a sudden jump in retail participation across debt funds between 2014 and 2017, thanks to attractive returns and huge flows post-demonetisation,the party ended abruptly after the IL&FS crisis broke out in September 2018.
Since then, there has been a string of defaults and downgrades in bonds issued by various companies — Essel Group, Altico Capital India, Reliance ADAG, Vodafone Idea and YES Bank, to name a few — that impacted returns of debt funds significantly.
