Principal Large Cap Fund (G) Outperforms BSE 100 over All Time Periods

Background:

Principal PNB Asset Management Company (In Association with Vijaya Bank) Pvt. Ltd. is a joint venture between the Principal Financial Group - a Fortune 500 company, Punjab National Bank and Vijaya Bank. It has started the operation in India on September 2000. The fund house manages assets worth Rs 9450.83 crore at end of August 2009.
Principal Large Cap Fund (G) an open-ended equity scheme launched in September 2005. The Investment Objective of the scheme would be to provide capital appreciation and/or dividend distribution by predominantly investing in companies having a large market capitalization. The minimum investment amount is Rs.5000 and in multiples of Rs 500 thereafter. The unit NAV of the scheme was Rs 22.52 per unit as on 7 September 2009.
Portfolio:

The total net assets of the scheme increased by Rs 0.22 crore to Rs 428.25 crore in August 2009.
Principal Large Cap Fund (G) took fresh exposure to four stocks in July 2009. The scheme has purchased 4.99 lakh units (2.82%) of Sesa Goa, 70116 units (2.63%) of Hero Honda Motors, 8.32 lakh units (1.72%) of Allahabad Bank and 1.49 lakh units (1.16%) of GAIL (India).
The scheme exited completely from Lanco Infratech by selling 3.24 lakh units (3.05%), Bharat Petroleum Corporation by selling 2.00 lakh units (2.26%), Tata Steel by selling 1.99 lakh units (2.05%) and Cipla by selling 2.00 lakh units (1.33%) among others in July 2009.
Sector -wise, the scheme took fresh exposures in Automobiles – Motorcycles / Mopeds at 2.63%.
Sector-wise, the scheme did exit completely from Engineering at 3.05%, Steel – Large at 2.05%, Pharmaceuticals – Indian – Bulk Drugs Formulation at 1.33% and Construction at 1.23% in July 2009.
The scheme had highest exposure to Reliance Industries with 1.19 lakh units (5.48% of portfolio size) followed by State Bank of India with 1.19 lakh units (5.08%), Oracle Financial Services Software with 1.09 lakh units (3.95%) and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation with 1.40 lakh units (3.81%) among others in July 2009.
It reduced its exposure from Reliance Industries by selling 55187 units to 1.19 lakh units (by 3.81%), Bharti Airtel to 2.79 lakh units (3.11%), Tata Consultancy Services by selling 2.00 lakh units to 1.49 lakh units (1.74%) and Dabur India by selling 5.00 lakh units to 2.97 lakh units (1.68%) among others in July 2009.
Sector-wise, the scheme had highest exposure to Banks – Public Sector at 11.25% (from 8.24% in June 2009), followed by Refineries at 10.17% (17.39%), Computers - Software – Large at 8.20% (9.51%) and Mining / Minerals / Metals at 6.59% (1.59%) among others in July 2009.
Sector wise, the scheme had reduced exposure from Refineries to 10.17% (by 7.22%), Telecommunications – Service Provider to 2.68% (by 3.11%), Computers – Software - Large to 8.20% (by 1.31%) and Personal Care - Indian to 4.31% (by 1.11%) among others in July 2009.
Performance:

The performance of the scheme is benchmarked against BSE 100. The scheme has outperformed the benchmark index over all time periods.
The scheme has posted returns of 7.03% outperformed the BSE 100 that increased by 6.46% over 1 month period ended 7 September 2009. Over 3 month's period, the scheme advanced by 12.88% outperformed the BSE 100 that gained 6.39%. It rose by 22.19% outperformed the benchmark index that was up by 10.95% over 1 year period.

Source: http://www.apollosindhoori.com/Default.htm

Sensex back at 16k, India best performer among Asian peers

A renewed burst of purchases by foreign funds pushed major stock indices to a 15-month high on Monday, leading to concerns that the market has run far ahead of itself.
The Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty rose by over 2% on Monday and have more than doubled in the past six months, causing market watchers to wonder if stock prices have discounted the economic recovery too quickly. Many fund managers privately voiced concerns that valuations are slowly expanding into a bubble, but added that strong liquidity and a positive mood in world markets could push stock prices higher for some more time.
“In the short term, we could see the market rising further because there is lot of cash on the sidelines, awaiting a correction,” said Nilesh Shah, chief investment officer and deputy MD, ICICI Prudential AMC. “But unless this cash is deployed in the market, we are unlikely to see any deep corrections.”
The 30-share Sensex closed at 16,016.32, or 2.1% higher, and the 50-share Nifty gained 2.2% to 4782.90. Provisional data showed foreign institutional investors net bought Rs 1,060 crore worth shares on Monday and domestic institutions Rs 150 crore.
The mood in world markets was upbeat following a statement over the weekend by the G-20 grouping of major economies that financial markets were stabilising and that the global economy was improving. India was the best performer in Asia while most European markets gained between 1% and 2%. “Possibility of earnings upgrades and hopes of incremental reforms could further strengthen liquidity,” said Navneet Munot, chief investment officer of SBI Mutual Fund, which managed about Rs 35,000 crore in assets.
Dealers said market operators took advantage of the holiday in US markets today to ramp up stock prices. Despite rising stock prices, turnover has remained on the lower side, underscoring the cautious mood among players. On Monday, traded turnover in the derivatives segment was about Rs 57,000 crore while in the cash market it was Rs 23,000 crore.
Investors continued to lap up second line shares, with gainers outnumbering losers nearly 4:1 on the BSE. “It is purely a liquidity-driven rally,” said Rashesh Shah, CMD, Edelweiss Capital. “Maybe, when the quarterly numbers start coming in next month, investors could get a bit more selective,” he added. Realty stocks were the star performers, with the BSE realty index gaining over 5%. Metal, banking and automobile stocks, too, witnessed good demand while investors shunned FMCG and IT shares.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Market-News/Sensex-back-at-16k-outperforms-Asia/articleshow/4984390.cms

UPDATE 1-L&T eyeing DBS Chola's India fund operation-sources

The financial services unit of India's Larsen & Toubro Ltd is in talks to buy Cholamandalam DBS Finance's domestic mutual fund operation, two sources familiar with the matter said.
"We are working on their behalf," one source said, referring to L&T Finance, a wholly owned unit of L&T. "We can't share details at the moment. Let's wait for the transaction."
Officials at Cholamandalam DBS, a joint venture between India's Murugappa Group and Singapore's DBS Bank that run DBS Cholamandalam Asset Management, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Another source said Edelweiss Capital was the advisor for the asset manager.
The valuation of Indian money managers has fallen from 2007/08 highs. In June, Japan's Nomura said it would buy a stake in LIC Mutual Fund for about 2.5 percent of fund's assets.
DBS Cholamandalam had assets of about $615 million at the end of August, the company's website showed.
Valuations are likely to come under pressure even more following a recent ban on entry fees, which is widely expected to slow growth, add to distribution cost, cut profitability and delay the path to breakeven for money managers
The country's stock market regulator said in July it would abolish front-end or entry fees charged by mutual funds from Aug. 1, a move aimed at cutting costs for investors and to discourage aggressive selling.
A source in Singapore familiar with DBS said the lender has had a rethink about the India joint venture for some time. The venture laid off staff and cut the number of branches last year.
"It's about high time we do so," he said when asked if DBS was planning to divest its stake in DBS Cholamandalam. Cholamandalam DBS shares rose by the maximum daily limit of 10 percent on Monday to 63.35 rupees.
A L&T Finance official in Mumbai and a DBS spokesman in Singapore declined comment.
Senior officials at Larsen & Toubro, India's largest engineering and construction firm, had said last month the diversified company was interested in expanding its presence to asset management and insurance businesses.
Earlier this month, L&T Finance successfully raised about $200 million via a retail bond sale.
Late last year, Religare Enterprises Ltd agreed to buy Lotus Mutual Fund from Singapore state investor Temasek and London-based Sabre Capital Worldwide for about 1-2 percent of assets under management, according to media reports.
By comparison, Infrastructure Development Finance Co agreed to buy Standard Chartered's Indian fund unit for about 6 percent of assets in March 2008. And in 2007, hedge fund Eton Park paid about 13 percent of assets for a piece of Reliance Capital's fund arm.
In August, consultant McKinsey said in a report the industry was likley to witness consolidation as smaller players might not be able to withstand stress on profitability.

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINBOM49323520090907?sp=true

Fortis Mutual Fund gives 10 pc dividend in Fortis Equity Fund

Fortis Mutual Fund today announced a 10 per cent dividend in its Fortis Equity Fund.
The record date for the declaration of this dividend is September 9, the company said in a statement here.
The unit holders registered under the dividend option of Fortis Equity Fund on this record date will be eligible to receive this dividend.
The investment objective of the Fortis Equity Fund is to generate long-term capital growth from a diversified and actively managed portfolio of equity and equity-related securities.
The scheme invests in a range of companies, with a bias towards large and medium market capitalisation companies.
The fund manager of the Scheme is Amit Nigam.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Personal-Finance/Mutual-Funds/Fortis-Mutual-Fund-gives-10-pc-dividend-in-Fortis-Equity-Fund/articleshow/4982598.cms