Fund Manager, Sandip Sabharwal comments on Magnum Balanced Fund's Portfolio Composition.

With two bonus issues and a dividend payout since its launch in October 1995, Magnum Balanced Fund has returned an annualized 18.63% since launch. The Fund's penchant for mid-cap stocks along with a higher allocation to growth sectors like FMCG, Pharma and Healthcare notched up a whooping 192% gain in the year 1999, while suffering heavily in 2000. On the debt side the fund has largely maintained a passive stance. Sandip Sabharwal who manages the Magnum Balanced Fund talks about the debt portfolio in an interview with Value Research. Q. We would like to know the maturity and rating profile of your debt component for November and also for the previous months of 2000? Further, your debt portfolio has been very much static. Please elaborate on your strategy for the debt portfolio. SS: Our strategy as far as the debt portfolio goes, is to have investments in debt instruments, which are of the best safety profile and are preferably AAA rated instruments. Our portfolio as far as debt goes is more or less stable because of the fact that during the poor conditions in the capital markets there have not been much inflows into the fund and as such we are comfortable with the quality of the current debt portfolio. Right now we are preferring a higher duration to the por