Us-64 July Sales Touch 4-Yr High At Rs 3,105 Cr
The US-64 scheme, the flagship of the Unit Trust of India, has raised an amount of Rs 3,105 crore for the month of July 1998 (the special offer period) , constituting a 30 per cent increase over the previous year's figures of Rs 2,391 crore.
This is a four-year high in terms of sales by the US-64 scheme in this month.
The UTI has a total sales projection of Rs 6,000 crore for the US-64 scheme in 1998-99, against a previous year's figure of Rs 4,668 crore. The overall mobilisation target for the UTI through all schemes has been placed at Rs 17, 440 crore for 1998-99 against a previous year's figure of Rs 13,800 crore.
The UTI executive trustee and acting chairman P J Nayak, addressing newspersons yesterday said,``It has been a good month in terms of business for the US-64 scheme,'' he said.
UTI, in the month of July has managed to garner a total of Rs 3,938 crore through all its schemes, up by 27 per cent over the previous year's performance of Rs 3,100 crore. Re-purchases have come down sharply from Rs 211 crore in July 1997 to Rs 110 crore in July 1998.
Nayak stressed that the retail interest was strong with Rs 826 crore (Rs 488 crore) coming in through this segment, registering a 69 per cent increase.
The institutional interest in the scheme (which is generally of a more volatile nature) was strong, totalling Rs 1,380 crore (Rs 1,146 crore) up by 20 per cent over the previous year's figure.
``This has been the highest July collections for the US-64 scheme since 1994. The figures reveal that we have been able to access the retail investor. The scheme, being of a unique nature (and not legally an assured-return scheme) shows that the retail presence is there in the Indian capital market,'' Nayak added.
Out of the total sales through this scheme, an amount of Rs 2,205 crore was through fresh collections (Rs 1,635 crore), thereby registering a 35 per cent increase over the previous year's figures. The balance amount has come in through the re-investment plan which has come back to the scheme, he said.
Of the institutional amount, more than 50 per cent has come through banks and financial institutions alone. The balance has come through a large section of trusts (both port and charitable) and larger corporates, Nayak added.
Commenting on its investment strategy at the markets in coming months, the UTI executive director M M Kapur said, ``The overall rising principle will be to provide maximum returns to the investors. At these levels, with a long term view in mind, the equities segment still look attractive. We will look at getting most of the monies invested in the markets in coming weeks.''
The UTI top brass assessed that it has remained a net buyer in recent months, looking at the balance debt/equities schemes corpus.