Uti Bond Plan Returns 19% In April-June

Unit Trust of India's (UTI) Bond Fund and G-Sec Fund have given annualised return of 18.96 per cent in the last three months and 20.02 per cent in the last six months ending June 8, respectively.

The net asset value of the bond fund scheme stands at Rs 116.20 under income option and Rs 124.58 under growth option. Interestingly, the corpus of the scheme too increased by around 97 crore in the last one month from Rs 1,360 crore on April 30, 2001 to Rs 1,457 crore as on May 31, 2001.

The scheme offers gains through capital gains and monthly withdrawal plan for the investors. The fund has 90.45 per cent of its corpus invested in corporate debt, 4 per cent in government debt and balance in overnight deposits. Interestingly, the trust is also considering adding several new features to the scheme to make it more investor friendly.

Adds S K Dasgupta, chief general manger, "In the current scenario of falling interest rates, investors prefer allocating a good part of their savings in debt schemes of mutual funds as these schemes are perceived to low risk with returns higher than bank term deposits."

Dasgupta further said, "UTI being one of the largest mutual fund has been able to offer research based products to meet diversified needs of present investors and emerging investors and, hence, expect higher inflows in the coming days."

On other hand, UTI G-Sec fund, which invests mainly in government securities, has shown an annualised return of 12.60 per cent in the last three months and 15.08 per cent in the last six months ended June 8.

The corpus of the fund stood at Rs 433.38 crore as on May 31. The weighted average maturity of the portfolio of the scheme has decreased to 5.76 year from 6.66 year a month ago. This was mainly because the fund had taken advantage of the rally in prices of gilts and as a hedge against trend reversal.

Meanwhile, a recent ORG Marg Investrack survery points that among all mutual funds in the country, Unit Trust of India continues to have the highest recall rate at whopping 45 per cent.