Reliance MF bets on auto, chemical, engg

Reliance Mutual Fund has increased its exposure to auto, chemical and engineering sectors while reduced weightage to telecom, utilities and cement sectors. Escorts, Dish TV, Tube Investments were in the list of top buys whereas NTPC, Unitech and MTNL were in the list of top sells.

In the auto sector, the fund house has freshly bought 63.68 lakh and 12.25 lakh shares of Escorts and Automotive Axles, respectively. It also purchased few shares of Swaraj Mazda. However, it sold over 5 lakh shares of Tata Motors.

Buying was also seen in chemical space, wherein it bought 32.29 lakh shares of GSFC, 1.73 lakh of United Phosphorous, 0.86 lakh of Reliance Petroleum and few shares of GNFC and Hikal. It also made fresh entry into Rallis India with 4 lakh shares. On the other hand, it sold over 1 lakh shares of Nirma.

The fund house has bought big chunks of engineering stocks as in 13 lakh shares of Suzlon Energy, 4.9 lakh shares of ABB, 3.65 lakh of Crompton Greaves, 2.39 lakh of Cummins, 2.07 lakh of Kirloskar Brothers, 1.86 lakh of L&T and 1.08 lakh of BGR Energy. It also bought some shares of Thermax, BEML, Voltamp and BHEL. It freshly bought 3.5 lakh shares of AIA Engineering. However, it offloaded Alstom Projects, Punj Lloyd, Siemens and Areva T&D.

On the other hand, the weightage of telecom sector has gone down in the month of August though Reliance Mutual Fund has increased exposure to private telecom companies. It sold nearly 30 lakh shares of MTNL. However, it freshly bought 37.84 lakh shares of Astra Microwave. It added 5 lakh shares of Reliance Communication and 2.8 lakh of Bharti Airtel.

In the utilities space, the fund house offloaded 35.65 lakh shares of NTPC, 5.6 lakh of GVK and 0.92 lakh of Tata Power Company while bought 2 lakh of Reliance Infrastructure and 8 lakh of Torrent Power.

Sell off was also seen in cement and construction sector. It sold 34 lakh shares of Unitech, 4.8 lakh of India Cements and 1 lakh of UltraTech Cement. It also exited HCC and Madhucon Projects. However, the fund house has bought Jaiprakash Associates, Rain Commodities, ACC and Gammon India.

Goldman Sachs plans maiden India equity fund

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian fund unit of Goldman Sachs, which received regulatory approval to launch mutual funds last week, filed initial papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Monday to offer its first equity fund.

Goldman Sachs India Equity Fund will invest at least 65 percent of its assets in stocks and the rest in debt and money market instruments, the firm said in its offer document.

This is unlike the strategy followed by an Indian fund venture of French insurer AXA and the fund unit of Edelweiss Capital, who have started off in the last two months offering debt funds as flows into stock funds slumped.

Investors, who have seen their portfolio values shrink nearly 40 percent in the first six months of 2008, poured only 27.62 billion rupees in equity funds in July, the lowest in two years, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India showed.

Most of the inflows are coming into debt products with fixed maturity plans, which are close-end fixed income funds, cornering 68 percent of the total 989.57-billion-rupee inflow into new funds in the first seven months of 2008.

Deutsche AMC appoints Suresh Soni on board

Suresh Soni was appointed on board of directors of Deutsche Asset Management (India) with effect from Aug. 28, 2008. Suresh Soni holds a Bachelor`s degree in Science, he is also a Chartered Accountant and Cost accountant, and has around 15 years of experience in Mutual Fund Industry.

Soni had joined Deutsche Asset Management (India) in October 2002 as the Fund manager and had become the chief executive officer by July 08. Before joining Deutsche Asset Management Soni was a fund manager and vice- president at Pioneer ITI AMC. He has also worked with SBI Mutual Fund and Sundaram Newton AMC.

Reliance MF SIPs cross 1 million mark

Reliance Mutual Fund, the nation's leading mutual fund in terms of assets under management, on Thursday claimed to have crossed the one-million mark in sales of their systematic investment plans (SIPs). 

"This is the first time for any mutual fund in India to have crossed this milestone in such a short span of time," said Vikrant Gugnani, CEO, Reliance Capital Asset Management Ltd. 

Citing the reasons, he said, "Customers' need-based flexible investment offerings and quality service have helped us win customer confidence across the country. Systematic investment plans are simple and easy even for aam aadmi as one can start with a small amount as low as Rs 100 per month. SIPs are helping in getting first-time investors in the market and growing the overall reach of mutual funds." 

Recently, Reliance Mutual Fund launched an enhanced version of the existing SIP – SIP + Insure, which gives investors insurance cover up to 360 times of the monthly investment. This added benefit is given to the investor at no extra cost.