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Birla Mutual launches open fund aimed at equities, debt and money markets

Birla Mutual Fund, a leading private sector mutual fund, today launched an open-ended balanced fund called Birla Balance which would provide higher return than a pure debt portfolio but with less volatility.

Announcing this at a press conference in Bombay, Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said that this was the first fund to be launched since the Aditya Birla group joined hands with the Canadian mutual fund major Sun Life Assurance company last July.

Emphasising the huge growth potential in financial services sector in India, Birla said that this was a core area for the group to attain a leadership in future. Birla Mutual Fund has currently assets under management of over Rs 23 billion and the fund is expected to cross the Rs 30 billion mark before the end of December 1999, he said.

The Birla Balance Fund will invest in the range of 50-75 per cent of its corpus into equity and related instruments and at least 25 per cent but below 50 per cent in debt and money market instruments.

Investors can enter the scheme with an initial subscription amount of Rs 3,000 and additional sums may be invested in multiples of Rs 1,000. No load will be charged for investors who subscribe during the issue period. For on-going subscriptions, units will be offered at net asset value or NAV-based prices.

The fund will remain open for intial subscription upto October 4, 1999.

The fund has two alternatives -- dividend plan and growth plan -- for the investors to opt for between payout plan and reinvestment plan. Although the dividend payout is planned to be an annual exercise, the asset management company may declare dividends ever earlier.

On restructuring of the financial services business, Kumar Mangalam said that Birla Global Finance Limited was the umbrella company holding all of Birla financial services sectors -- retail products and services.

"Our recent tie-up with Sun Life of Canada would strengthen us in more ways than one given its pre-eminent status globally and its expertise in financial services," he said.

Birla Mutual Fund which started in a scenario of negative investor sentiment five years ago, is today number one fund in the private sector.

According to Birla, the fund has re-oriented itself from an investment product perspective to an investment solution perspective and this has been demonstrated by launching schemes like the Birla Cash Plus, Birla Taxplan, Regular Withdrawal Plan, Systematic Transfer Plan and Payroll Savings Plan.

With its judicious mix of equity and debt options, he hoped that the balance fund would serve to cater to both conservative and aggressive investors.

Recently, Birla Mutual Fund has been ranked as the best mutual fund, its flagship equity scheme Birla Advantage Fund as best performing equity scheme by the Investment Research and Information Services or IRIS, a Bombay-based private company specialising in market intelligence.

UNI

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