Sundaram BNP Paribas Taxsaver is a fund which is making its presence felt for quite some time now. The fund has emerged as category beating player for the past few years. For example, the fund delivered 68 per cent returns compared to the tax planning category's average return of 56 per cent returns in 2007. Not only about the returns, the fund has also shown resilience during the period of markets falls. In March last year when the markets had tanked, the fund had restricted its fall to the category average's 6 per cent decline. The fund was ranked seventh out of the category of 26 funds in 2007.
The fund maintains a huge portfolio of 55-60 stocks much less than what the fund used to have in the early part of 2007. It started out as a large cap offering, became mid-cap heavy towards November 2003, when the new fund manager N Prasad took over. For the next few years the fund was shuttled between N Prasad and Anoop Bhaskar. However the both the fund managers tilted the fund towards mid cap stocks mostly. It was only in April 2007 that the fund again went accumulating large cap stocks.
In fact large cap stocks formed 70 per cent of the fund's portfolio in May 2007. Despite its mid cap leanings the fund's top five holdings hover around 20 per cent of the fund's portfolio. The fund's favourite sectors are energy and financial services.
The fund has been holding Reliance Industries, Thermax, Jai Prakash Associates for quite some and these holdings have proved very rewarding for the fund. In December 2007, the fund added Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) aggressively to its portfolio and this stock is the top holding of the fund after IDFC. The fund had exited the stock in November 2003 after holding it for a year.
The fund's AUMs have been surging at a breakneck speed. It started out as a small fund having assets of Rs 3.8 crore in January 2001, which increased to Rs 138 crore in Januray 2007. At the end of December 2007, the AUMs surged to Rs 413 crore, an increase of 100 times in seven years!
This article was originally published on March 11, 2008.
Ask Value Research 
New episodes every Friday 
New Process Alert 
Seems like you've uploaded a wrong QR code. Please upload the QR code downloaded from MF Central platform.
