Fidelity launches Fidelity Short Term Income Fund

Fidelity Mutual Fund today announced the launch of Fidelity Short Term Income Fund, an open ended income scheme that aims to generate reasonable returns primarily through investments in fixed income securities and money market instruments. The NFO for the fund will be open from 19 – 30 November 2010. Shriram Ramanathan is the fund manager of the Fidelity Short Term Income Fund. The Scheme is benchmarked to the Crisil Short Term Bond Fund Index.

Ashu Suyash, Managing Director and Country Head – India, Fidelity Investment Managers, said: “At a time when investors have turned risk averse with hardening interest rates and increasing equity market volatility, we believe that Fidelity Short Term Income Fund could provide reasonable returns even over shorter periods of time. The Fund presents a key building block for the asset allocation plans of retail and high net-worth investors and is in line with our overall objective of helping investors in reaching their financial goals. With this launch, we hope to reach out to a wide section of investors with an investment option that will leverage our expertise in bottom-up credit research to provide better post-tax returns over other interest bearing instruments including deposits.”

Shriram Ramanathan, the fund manager for the Fidelity Short Term Income Fund, said: “In the current environment where short term yields have moved up significantly, on a risk-adjusted basis, short term income funds provide a good opportunity for investors to benefit from the higher yields, yet keeping interest rate risk at an acceptably low level. Fidelity Short Term Income Fund with its freshly constructed portfolio of short term instruments with attractive yields and sound credit quality (with thoroughly researched constituents) makes even more investing sense in such a scenario. The Fund has been assigned the Credit Risk Rating mfAAA by ICRA.”

The rating for the Fidelity Short Term Income Fund indicates that the underlying portfolio has the lowest credit risk and the highest degree of safety from credit losses.

The Fidelity Short Term Income Fund will offer Growth and Dividend options. The minimum initial investment is Rs. 5000. The Fund has an exit load of 0.50%, which will be applicable for redemptions within 6 months from the date of purchase or allotment on a first-in-first-out basis.

Investors can invest in the Fidelity Short Term Income Fund even through the SIP route with a minimum amount of Rs. 500 per installment with the total of all installments not being less than Rs. 5000/- In addition, the systematic transfer and withdrawal plans are available in the Fund.

FIL Fund Management Private Limited (FFMPL), Fidelity Investment Managers’ Indian asset management company started operations in the country in 2004. Today, with total assets under management of over Rs.8900 crores (AUM as on 29 October 2010) and more than 17 lakh customer accounts, FFMPL is among the fastest growing new asset management companies in India. In addition to offices in 16 cities, it has a significant web presence which helps investors across India access Fidelity’s funds. Further, most of its funds are listed on the NSE’s Mutual Fund Service System (MFSS) and the BSE’s StAR MF Platform, reaching out to investors in over 1500 cities and towns. Fidelity today offers Indian investors a comprehensive range of well-differentiated investment options through its seven equity funds and six fixed income / hybrid funds.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/fidelity-launches-fidelity-short-term-income-fund/415338/