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Summary: Sundaram Mutual’s first SIF, which needs at least Rs 10 lakh, will invest outside India’s top 100 companies and use the Nifty MidSmallcap 400 TRI as its benchmark. It enters a category where seven funds managed Rs 7,533 crore as of September 2026.
Sundaram Mutual has entered the specialised investment fund (SIF) category with the Select Equity Ex-Top 100 Long-Short Fund. The NFO opened on October 21 and closes on November 4, 2026. Sundaram's SIF platform carries the brand name Select SIF.
The fund
The fund will invest at least 65 per cent of its assets in companies outside the 100 largest by market value, as classified by AMFI. Sundaram says it will pick from companies ranked 101 to 750. That covers mid caps, small caps and stocks beyond the top 500. The portfolio will hold 25 to 40 stocks, chosen bottom-up.
The fund can also take short positions through futures and options. SEBI allows unhedged short exposure of up to 25 per cent of assets. Sundaram says it will use derivatives mainly to hedge the portfolio during sharp falls, with occasional pair trades: buying one stock while shorting another in the same sector. The fund house names manufacturing, premium consumer brands and technology platforms among the themes it will look for.
The benchmark is the Nifty MidSmallcap 400 TRI. Madanagopal Ramu manages the equity portfolio. He has worked in equities for over 18 years, including as head of equity at Sundaram Alternates, the group's PMS arm, and now also manages Sundaram Business Cycle Fund and Sundaram Large and Mid Cap Fund.
Key details
- Minimum investment: Rs 10 lakh per PAN, counted across all of a fund house's SIF strategies (Rs 1 lakh for accredited investors)
- Exit load: 1 per cent if redeemed within a year of allotment
- Plans: Direct and Regular, with Growth and IDCW options
- NAV: Daily
- Risk band: Level 5, the highest
What is an SIF?
SEBI created SIFs in 2025 to sit between mutual funds and portfolio management services (PMS). A mutual fund house runs an SIF, and it is taxed like a mutual fund, so investors pay tax only on redemption. In a PMS, investors pay capital gains tax each time the manager sells a stock at a profit. SIFs can take unhedged short positions of up to 25 per cent, which ordinary mutual funds cannot. In return, the minimum investment is Rs 10 lakh, against Rs 50 lakh for a PMS.
SEBI allows seven SIF strategies. Five have live funds today: hybrid long-short, equity long-short, equity ex-top 100 long-short, active asset allocator long-short and sector rotation long-short.
The category so far
The ex-top 100 category opened in November 2025 with quant's qSIF fund. Select becomes its eighth fund. The seven existing funds held Rs 7,533 crore at the end of September 2026, the most of any equity SIF category. ICICI Prudential's iSIF is the largest at Rs 2,620 crore, followed by SBI's Magnum at Rs 1,598 crore and Edelweiss's Altiva at Rs 1,535 crore.
The other seven funds benchmark themselves to the Nifty 500 TRI or the BSE 500 TRI. Select is the only one in the category to use a mid- and small-cap index. Across all five strategies, SIFs managed Rs 38,287 crore as of September, according to AMFI.
Also read: The SIF Roundtable 2025
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