Fund Pick: Nippon India Small Cap Fund is the long-term outperformer

Nippon India Small Cap Fund, launched in September 2010, has featured in the top 30 percentile of the small-cap funds category of CRISIL Mutual Funds Ranking (CMFR) for four consecutive quarters through March 2022. Samir Rachh has been managing the fund since January 2017. The fund’s month-end assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs 18,675 crore in May 2022, up from Rs 8,438 crore in May 2019.

The primary investment objective of the scheme is to generate long-term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity-related instruments of small-cap companies.

Trailing returns

The fund outperformed the benchmark (Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI) and its peers (funds ranked under the small-cap category in March 2022, according to CMFR) in the 1-, 2-,3-,5-,7-, and 10-year trailing periods.

An investment of Rs 10,000 in the fund on September 16, 2010 (at the inception) would have grown to Rs 65,821 on July 7, 2022, at an annualised rate of 17.3 per cent. In comparison, the same investment in the category and benchmark would have grown to Rs 42,095 (12.9 per cent annualised return) and Rs 29,409 (9.2 per cent) respectively.

Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) is a disciplined mode of investment offered by mutual funds through which one can invest a certain amount at regular intervals. A monthly investment of Rs 10,000 during the past 10 years, totalling Rs 12 lakh would have grown to Rs 39.39 lakh (22.74 per cent annualised returns) as compared to Rs 24.84 lakh (14.10 per cent annualised returns) in the benchmark, as on July 07.

Portfolio analysis

The fund has predominantly maintained allocation to small-cap stocks in the past three years which is in-line with its investment objective. Exposure to small-cap stocks averaged 73.50 per cent while that to mid- and large-cap stocks averaged 15.64 per cent and 7.61 per cent respectively.

The portfolio has been diversified across 46 sectors in the last three years. Chemicals had the highest average allocation of 11.09 per cent followed by consumer non-durables (9.91 per cent), software (9.27 per cent), finance (7.81 per cent), and consumer durables (7.74 per cent).

The fund took exposure to 270 stocks in three years and has held 67 stocks consistently. Deepak Nitrite, Navin Flourine International, Tube Investments of India, Dixon Technologies, and NIIT Limited have been the major contributors to the fund’s performance were also consistently held.