Institutional investors' MF asset up 21% to Rs 6 lakh cr in Dec: AMFI

According to industry insiders, the key contributing factors for the increase is an uptick in sentiments and expectations of an investor-friendly and reforms-oriented govt delivering on policy changes

Institutional investors' mutual fund asset base increased by 21% to over Rs 6 lakh crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal.

According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI), institutional investors, which held Rs 5.04 lakh crore in mutual funds as of March 2014, raised their assets base to Rs 6.09 lakh crore at December-end.

A large chunk of institutions assets are held in liquid or money market schemes and debt oriented schemes.

Together, all 45 mutual fund houses manage assets worth over Rs 11 lakh crore.

"Institutional investors dominate liquid and money market schemes with 92%, followed by debt-oriented schemes (60%)," it added.

Institutional investors account for 54% of the mutual fund assets, of which corporates are the larger chunk at about 47%. The rest are Indian and foreign institutions.

Besides, individual investors account for about 46% of mutual fund assets.

Apart from institutional investors, individual investors too increased their investment in mutual funds from Rs 3.99 lakh crore in March 2014 to Rs 5.25 lakh crore in December last year.

Industry insiders said the key contributing factors for increase in institutional investors' asset base is an uptick in sentiments and expectations of an investor-friendly and reforms-oriented government delivering on policy changes.

Mutual fund is an investment vehicle with a pool of funds collected from investors to buy securities such as stocks, bonds, money market instruments and similar assets.

Assets managed by the Indian mutual fund industry have grown from Rs 9.02 lakh crore in March last year to Rs 11.34 lakh crore in December 2014.