Zipping Ahead

Talk about giving the fund manager a free hand - this one's mandate certainly offers that. The fund manager has the leeway to invest in domestic companies as well as stocks listed outside India. In fact, he can go up to 90 per cent in the latter. There is no sector bias, nor any market capitalisation tilt limiting him. He can buy debt and cash equivalents up to 25 per cent of the portfolio. Simply put, nothing hinders the fund manager from taking opportunistic bets in any form. Last year, this one made a mark. In terms of annual performance, it stood at 19 (out of 214 diversified equity funds). However, its track record is spotty. Launched in 2005, it started off on a good note and went on to be a top quartile performer in 2006. But in the next two years it failed to impress and underperformed even its own benchmark and the multi-cap category average. When the market began to rally in March 2009, the fund had around 85 per cent of the portfolio in equity. It did not appear that the fund manager was convinced about the rally as it was only in June that the exposure began to get seriously hiked upwards o

This article was originally published on September 10, 2010.