Mutual fund accounts drop by 15 lakh during Apr-Sept

Number of folios fell to around 4.13 crore at the end of Sept 2013, from 4.28 crore in the last fiscal: Sebi

Mutual funds have lost an estimated over 15 lakh investors, measured in terms of individual accounts or folios, in the first six months of the current fiscal, mainly due to profit booking and various merger schemes.

According to market regulator Sebi's data on total investor accounts with 44 fund houses, the number of folios fell to around 4.13 crore at the end of September 2013, from 4.28 crore in the last fiscal (2012-13).

Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts, although one investor can have multiple folios.

Market participants attributed the sharp fall in number of folios to profit-booking and various merger schemes in the mutual fund industry, among other reasons.

During April-September period of 2013, the number of investor folios for equity schemes fell by over 20 lakh. The total number of folios in equity funds were 3.11 crore by the end of September as against 3.32 crore by March-end.

The mutual fund industry has been facing consistent equity folio closures for the past few months.

Recently, Sebi Chairman U K Sinha had also raised concerns over the continuous decline in folios in recent months.

The decline in equity folios during the first six months of the current fiscal is coincided with an increase of 2.88% in the BSE benchmark index Sensex.

According to Sebi data, the total number of folios in debt funds rose by about 3.82 lakh to 65 lakh at the end of September 2013.

Besides, exchange traded funds lost over 41,758 folios to nearly seven lakh investor accounts at the end of September this year.

Balanced schemes, which invest in the equity and debt category, gained 1.4 lakh folios to end at 27 lakh at the end of September.

As on August 30, the sector offered a total of 1,248 schemes to investors, of which 345 were equity schemes and 813 were debt-linked schemes.

The mutual fund industry lost more than 36 lakh investors in 2012-13. The last financial year also marked the fourth consecutive year of loss of folios by mutual funds. During the preceding three financial years, the mutual fund industry had lost over 15 lakh investor accounts.