Books
Columnists
Indian Tax
Insurance
Interview
Mutual Funds
NRI Tax
Personal Finance
Personal Banking
Real Estate
Stocks

Masterplus '91

Dhirendra Kumar

Masterplus '91 is a large open-ended equity fund. The fund was originally launched as a close-ended fund in December 1991 and was converted open-ended in October 1998. Masterplus declared its first dividend of 12 per cent in July 1999. The fund does not carry any entry load, however it levies an exit load of 3 per cent.

During the second half of 1999, the fund initiated some realignment in the portfolio paring its exposures in public sector undertakings and picking up stakes in software and increasing its holdings in pharma and FMCG sectors. Had the fund timed its entry into the growth sectors much earlier, it would have clocked better returns. Besides, pharma and FMCG stocks have seen a beating on the bourses in the last six months which has restricted the upside in the fund. As on March 2000, the portfolio is evenly divided between FMCG (22%), infotech, communication and entertainment (21%), diversified companies (15%) and petroleum (8.23%). The fund also has modest exposures in the sectors of cement, engineering and banking.

The fund will be a key beneficiary of a broad-based rally. Near-term, leadership within sectors is likely to be in the stocks that have a large capitalisation and are liquid. Masterplus is heavily invested in such stocks like Hindustan Petroleum, Hindalco, Reliance, Larsen & Toubro, Telco, ACC, Grasim and others. Besides, a turnaround in the sentiment for FMCG stocks will give a further boost to the fund.

The fund has given an annualised return of 10.31 per cent in its eight-year plus history against 9.9 per cent by the Sensex. As Masterplus was the second equity fund from UTI launched five years after the first Indian equity fund Mastershare, the fund raised almost Rs 10 billion. The launch of Masterplus coincided with the government's first round of public sector divestment and the fund was able to invest heavily in PSU shares at attractive prices.

The buoyancy in PSU stocks in 1994 took the net asset value (NAV) to a high of Rs 29. Despite a subsequent bear phase with PSU stocks losing charm, the fund managed to guard a large part of its initial gains. After a long period of uninspiring performance, the fund picked up in the rising markets of 1999, gaining 48 per cent. The fund was a key beneficiary during the cyclical rally in the second quarter of 1999.

Fund Basics
Objective	Size (Rs cr)	NAV:17/5/2000	Exit Price	Entry Price	Total Returns (%)
Growth	685.39	20.70	20.08	20.70	10.31%
Benchmark Comparisons (%)					30/4/2000
	1M	3M	6M	1Yr	3Yr
Fund	-13.1	-17.1	-7.0	23.7	-4.1
Sensex	-9.7	-12.7	1.4	42.3	6.8
Nat. Index	-21.3	-18.9	11.0	68.5	15.6
Obj. Avg.	-23.4	-22.5	10.3	68.7	27.6
Top holdings (31/3/2000)					Net Asset (%)
ITC					13.35
Reliance Ind					12.88
HLL					8.42
Infosys					7.49
Reliance Petro					7.04
Satyam Computer					4.53
NIIT					3.69
MTNL					2.90
Gujarat Ambuja					2.40
L&T					2.16
Bhel					2.15
Zee Telefilms					2.12
SBI					1.48
Hindalco					1.44
Ranbaxy					1.38
Telco					1.28
HPCL					1.19

Source: Value Research

Mutual Funds

Tell us what you think of this feature