SBI Bluechip Fund, Kotak Select Focus Fund top BS's MF 2017 rankings

THE LEADERS

The fund managers featured here manage equity schemes which topped Business Standard’s MF rankings for FY17, in four categories — large- cap, multi-cap, mid-cap and small-cap funds. These managers have not only beaten peers on return criteria but with lesser risk and volatility. These funds also have a low expense ratio, which helps enhance returns.

Sohini Andani

SBI Bluechip Fund 

In a difficult year which saw the equity market fall after the note ban and then recover, SBI Bluechip Fund has outperformed its benchmark by a comfortable margin. The fund, invests largely in the top 100 companies by market value and beat its benchmark BSE 100 in the three-year and five-year periods; the one-year performance was in line. Largely a growth-oriented fund, about 85 per cent of the corpus of about Rs 11,000 crore is in equities and the rest in debt or cash. HDFC Bank continues to be top pick for the fund and accounts for 6.7 per cent of the assets under management. The fund, in existence since 2006, is being managed by Sohini Andani since September 2010. The higher debt and cash position of 15 per cent helped the fund manager do better than peers, following the market's fall after demonetisation. Andani, a chartered accountant, worked with leading brokerages before joining here. She has been successful in using her experience spanning 20 years to not only outperform the benchmark by a wide margin when the going was good but also repeat the performance when market sentiment is down, as in 2011 and 2015.

Harsha Upadhyay

Kotak Select Focus Fund

Another outperformer over the past year, the Kotak Select Focus Fund gave return of 31.6 per cent compared to the 23 per cent delivered by its benchmark the Nifty 200. A focus on buying key stocks in selected sectors helped the fund manager do better than the benchmark and peers. Among the sectors it is overweight on are cement with the sector accounting for 10 per cent of assets under management. Three cement stocks — UltraTech Cement, The Ramco Cements and Shree Cement find a place in the top 10 stocks of the portfolio. While Reliance Industries is the single largest and accounts for 4.55 per cent of assets, UltraTech is the fourth largest holding, with asset share of 3.7 per cent. The fund adopts a top down approach to select sectors expected to do well, while specific companies are chosen on their ability to scale up, generate strong return ratios and having a competitive edge. Roughly 75 per cent of stocks in the fund, which has a corpus of Rs 8,500 crore, are invested in large-caps. The fund, launched in 2009, has been run by Harsha Upadhyay since 2012. The strategy to focus on some sectors has helped the management graduate from IIM Lucknow and a CFA to beat competition in each of the past five years.

Venugopal Manghat

L&T India Value Fund

The mid-cap fund seeks to invest in a diversified portfolio of stocks, with higher focus on undervalued securities. It has the option of investing in foreign equities as well but does not have international securities of significant value. It has roughly 40 per cent in large-cap stocks and the rest in mid and small-cap. For the five-year period ending March 2017, it has beaten its benchmark S&P BSE 200 by 12 percentage points and its category by more than three percentage points. With a well-diversified portfolio of about 80 equities, the fund has effectively reduced the sectoral and stock-specific risk to a great extent. Each of its top holdings such as State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank, Power Grid Corporation and Future Retail form less than three per cent of its overall portfolio. The fund is managed by Venugopal Manghat and Karan Desai. Manghat is an MBA in finance and has about two decades of experience in the asset management. Desai has done his MSc in Investments from the University of Birmingham, UK. 

 

Sunil Singhania

Samir Racch

Reliance Small Cap Fund

The fund tracks a large universe of stocks, with a mandate to invest at least 65 per cent of its portfolio in small-caps. It looks for attributes such as good management, reasonable valuations, and business sustainability. The fund began its journey in 2010 and has delivered stellar returns, beating its benchmark S&P BSE Small Cap by 13 percentage points and its category by more than four percentage points over a five-year period ended March 2017.  The fund is managed by veteran managers Sunil Singhania and Samir Racch. Singhania has been tracking Indian equities for almost 20 years, with 10 years on the buy side, managing equity assets, and is currently the chief investment officer (equities) at Reliance Mutual Fund. Racch is a BCom with a total experience of 12 years in financial services. “The portfolio is well diversified across sectors, reducing sectoral bias. It does not exhibit any bias towards value or growth and simply chooses good businesses to put money in,” says Suresh Sadagopan, a financial planner.