Retail investors lose in equity funds
Mumbai: The financial year 2000-01 has a downside for most retail investors, according to an analysis of mutual fund operations. The analysis shows that retail investors, who had invested in equity growth funds have lost more than Rs 12,500 crore in the nine months period ending December 2000. The total assets under management with growth funds, which stood at Rs 30,611 crore at the end of March 2000, now stands at just Rs 18,010 crore at the end of December 00.
Analysis of individual funds reveals that the biggest losers on an absolute basis included some of the best performing funds, the likes of Birla, Kothari and Alliance. While funds like Birla Advantage, Alliance Equity and Prudential ICICI Growth have suffered on account of portfolio erosion, others like Reliance Growth, Libra Leap and Zurich Top 200 have lost due to outflows on account of redemption. UTI funds were however, excluded from the analysis since their portfolios were not available as of March end 00. Overall, the analysis shows a fall of more than Rs 12,500 crore in the managed assets of these funds from the March '00 levels.

An analysis of the sales and redemption figures for the last nine months however, reveals that there has been a low net outflow of just Rs 300 crore from these growth funds in the period March to December 2000 period. Except July to September 00 quarter, which saw outflow of Rs 1,696 crore, there has been in fact sizeable inflows in the other two quarters. The October to December quarter, for instance saw an inflow of Rs 793 crore, which means that as much as Rs 12,200 crore has been eroded in the market meltdown. The assets under management have thus, nearly gone back to same level as on March 99, when it stood at Rs 14,622 crore.
Back to News Review index page