Sahara MF appoints new fund manager

Devesh Thacker is being appointed as fund manager (debt) with effect from 27 February 2009 in place of Puneet Srivastava for the debt oriented schemes namely Sahara Liquid Fund, Sahara Income Fund, Sahara Gilt Fund, Sahara FMP 395 days series 2, Sahara FMP 395 days series 3, Sahara Classic Fund, Sahara Interval Fund Quarterly Plan Series 1 and Sahara Short Term Bond Fund.

Source: http://www.geojit.com/mutual/MF_news.asp?srno=300779

JM Financial MF announces change in key personnel

ADDENDUM

THIS ADDENDUM DATED FEBRUARY 25, 2009 SETS OUT THE CHANGES TO BE MADE IN THE SCHEME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION DOCUMENT (SAI) OF ALL SCHEMES OF JM FINANCIAL MUTUAL FUND AND SCHEME INFORMATION DOCUMENT (SID) AND KEY INFORMATION MEMORANDA (KIM) OF RESPECTIVE EQUITY SCHEMES OF JM FINANCIAL MUTUAL FUND
In view of Mr. Sandip Sabharwal’s separation from the services of JM Financial Asset Management Pvt. Ltd., he ceases to be a key personnel of the AMC and the schemes managed by him will now be managed by the existing Equity Fund Management team. Mr. Asit Bhandarkar shall be the Fund Manager of JM Core 11 Fund – Series 1 and JM Emerging Leaders Fund, Mr. Sanjay Chhabaria shall be the Fund Manager for JM Multi Strategy Fund, Mr. Sandeep Neema shall be the Fund Manager for JM Tax Gain Fund and JM Contra Fund will be managed jointly by Mr. Sandeep Neema and Mr. Sanjay Chhabaria.
All references to Mr. Sandip Sabharwal, CIO (Equity) in the Statement of Additional Information (SAI)/ Scheme Information Document (SID) and Key Information Memoranda (KIM) of the respective Equity Schemes of JM Financial Mutual Fund stand deleted.
All other features of the respective Schemes remain unchanged.

Source: http://jmfinancialmf.com/CMT/Upload/ArticleAttachments/C8D619C5-51C1-4EE7-9CE3-E6C84826CFC4/Addendum%20-%20Sandip%20Sabharwal.pdf

ADDENDUM

THIS ADDENDUM DATED FEBRUARY 25, 2009 SETS OUT THE CHANGES TO BE MADE IN THE SCHEME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION DOCUMENT (SAI) OF ALL SCHEMES OF JM FINANCIAL MUTUAL FUND AND SCHEME INFORMATION DOCUMENT (SID) AND KEY INFORMATION MEMORANDA (KIM) OF RESPECTIVE DEBT SCHEMES OF JM FINANCIAL MUTUAL FUND
Mr. Mohit Verma, Chief Investment Officer (Debt) and Fund Manager of JM Short Term Fund, JM Income Fund and JM G-Sec Fund has resigned from the services of JM Financial Asset Management Private Limited. Pursuant to his resignation, Ms. Shalini Tibrewala shall be the Fund Manager for the Schemes managed by Mr. Mohit Verma.
All references to Mr. Mohit Verma in the Statement of Additional Information (SAI)/ Scheme Information Document (SID) and Key Information Memoranda (KIM) of the respective Schemes of JM Financial Mutual Fund stand deleted.
All other features of the respective Schemes remain unchanged.

Source: http://jmfinancialmf.com/CMT/Upload/ArticleAttachments/C8D619C5-51C1-4EE7-9CE3-E6C84826CFC4/Addendum%20-%20Mohit%20Verma.pdf

Diversified funds hold on to cash

Diversified equity schemes seem to prefer cash over equity. According to ICRA online data, some schemes have close to 60% of their total assets under management (AUM) in cash.
Industry experts say that most funds are sitting on cash anywhere between 10-15% of AUM, as the market continues to move in a narrow range. ``Our analysis shows that the cash portion of the portfolio has been growing steadily in the last few months,'' says a mutual fund analyst.
Why are funds sitting on cash, when they can buy shares cheaply and maximise returns for their investors? ``A fund could be sitting on high cash levels for a variety of reasons, including waiting for the correct entry point to negative or range-bound market view. In case of NFOs, the fund may also be in the deployment mode,'' explains Sameer Kamdar, ceo, Asset Management, ASK Investment Holdings. ``People don't think the market will move up sharply soon. In such a situation, they prefer to stay on cash,'' says Waquar Naquvi, ceo, Taurus Mutual Fund. ``Most fund houses are sitting on cash up to 15-30%.''
Another reason why some of the schemes may prefer to sit on cash is because of the nature of their investment. ``When you are running a small or a mid-cap scheme or a scheme looking for new opportunities, you will have to keep some cash aside. Especially in a market like this, the cash could come in very handy,'' says an MF manager, who doesn't want to be named. ``Also, some funds try to show better performance by sitting on cash, as most funds are in the negative territory.''
However, Naqvi points out that extremely high cash element in the portfolio won't work over a long period of time. ``It should be a short term strategy. If you keep extremely high percentage of cash, then you won't qualify as an equity MF for the tax purpose. And the investors would suffer,'' he says. An equity fund should have to invest at least 65% of its portfolio in stocks to qualify for the long term tax-free capital gains status.
So, what exactly is the ideal percentage of cash in a portfolio? Some fund managers believe 5% cash is ideal, but they point out that ideal percentage works in an ideal market. ``There is no ideal percentage of cash one should have in the portfolio. It all depends on the style and the view of the fund manager,'' says Kamdar. ``MNCs may have such figures, but Indian companies don't stick such rules,'' points out Naqvi.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India-Business/Diversified-funds-hold-on-to-cash/articleshow/4198045.cms

IDFC’s new equity fund to mirror GDP growth pattern

In an innovation of sorts, IDFC Mutual Fund has launched GDP Growth Fund, a scheme that provides investors the opportunity to invest in the India growth story by mirroring investments in thevarious components of growth.Thus, the fund would endeavour to follow economic growth of the country by investing its corpus in different gross domestic products (GDP), such as industry, services and agriculture, in the same proportion as their contribution to overall GDP.Accordingly, going by the present trend, 8 per cent of the total corpus would be allocated to stocks of companies having business related to agriculture, 71 per cent in services and the remaining 26 per cent in industries. IDFC has pinned its hopes on India growing at a higher pace compared with other countries across the globe.The fund, however, comes at a time when the economic growth of the country has slowed with GDP projections being successively lowered to a little over 7 per cent for the present fiscal year by the Union government. The new fund offer period was open for subscription from January 28 to February 26, 2009. The face value of new issue is Rs 10 per unit.Mutual fund industry players say that IDFC Mutual Fund might not have an easy ride with the fund, especially at this point.“It is not easy to mirror the GDP as the new scheme of IDFC fund envisages. There are not many great performers in the agriculture sector and getting right stocks in optimum proportion would not be easy. Also, not all the sectors of the economy would perform in a similar manner at any given point and hence the fund has to remain invested in a particular sector in a particular proportion and this is a negative of the new fund,” Ashish Kapur, chief executive officer, Invest Shoppe, a broker of mutual fund products, said.“There are other mutual funds that offer schemes that have similar features. Under the present circumstances, investors might be wary of betting on a new fund rather than investing in tried and tested one,” a head of a mutual fund house, who did not wish to be named, said.The new fund offers both growth and dividend options. The minimum investment amount is Rs 5,000 and in multiples Re 1 thereafter. The fund will charge an entry load of 2.25 per cent for the investment amount less than Rs 5 crore.

Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/mutual-funds/idfc’s-new-equity-fund-mirror-gdp-growth-pattern-183