Fund pick: Axis Midcap Fund shows steady progress across periods

Launched in February 2011, Axis Midcap Fund featured in the top 30 percentile of the mid-cap funds category in CRISIL Mutual Fund Rankings (CMFR) during the three quarters ended December 2018. With over 17 years of experience, Shreyash Devalkar has been managing the fund since November 2016. The fund’s month-end assets under management (AUM) almost doubled from Rs 1,203 crore in April 2016 to Rs 2,199 crore in March 2019.

The investment objective of the scheme is to achieve long-term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity-related instruments of mid-cap companies.

Consistent performance

The fund has consistently outperformed the benchmark (S&P BSE MidCap TRI) and its peers (funds ranked under the mid-cap category in December 2018 CMFR) in all the trailing periods under analysis. The fund outperformed the benchmark in two of the four market phases under analysis. It significantly outperformed the benchmark during the post-European crisis phase and declined less relative to the benchmark and peers during the recent liquidity tightening in the lending sector.

An investment of Rs 10,000 in the fund on February 18, 2011, (inception of the fund) would have grown to Rs 36,210 on April 11, 2019, at an annualised rate of 17.11 per cent, as compared with the category and the benchmark, which would have grown to Rs 31,183 (14.98 per cent annually) and Rs 25,731 (12.30 per cent annually), respectively.

Systematic investment plan (SIP) is a disciplined mode of investing offered by mutual funds through which one can invest a certain amount at regular intervals. A monthly investment of Rs 10,000 for the past seven years in the fund would have grown to Rs 15.15 lakh (16.80 per cent annualized yield) compared with Rs 13.99 lakh (14.55 per cent) in the benchmark as on April 11, 2019.

Portfolio analysis

The fund maintained a predominant allocation to mid-cap stocks during the past three years. Allocation to mid-cap stocks averaged 58.12 per cent during this period while large-cap and small-cap allocations averaged 19.15 per cent and 14.81 per cent. Mid-cap allocations have ranged from 42.54 per cent to 68.67 per cent during the past three years.

It took exposure to 25 sectors during the three years. The top five sectors of the fund’s portfolio were finance (average exposure of 21.82 per cent), followed by auto ancillaries (10.95 per cent), consumer non-durables (8.08 per cent), industrial products (7.03 per cent), and banks (6.51 per cent).

During the past three years, Gruh Finance and City Union Bank were the highest contributors to the fund’s performance and were also consistently held. Other major contributors include Page Industries, Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv.