Prude-Icici To Launch Three Funds Today

The newly-formed Prudential-ICICI Asset Management Company will unveil three mutual fund schemes today. According to sources, the fund will launch a growth scheme, income scheme and a money market mutual fund to collectively raise Rs 600 cr.

Martin Jacomb, chairman, Prudential Corp, UK, will launch these schemes today. The growth scheme will be called Prudential-ICICI Growth Plan (PIGP), the income scheme will be called Prudential-ICICI Income Plan (PIIP) and the money mutual will be called Prudential-ICICI Liquid plan (PILP).

All the three schemes will be open-ended. Each scheme will have a target corpus of Rs 10 crore with an option to retain Rs 200 crore oversubscription in each scheme in the initial offer. The issue price is Rs 10 per unit per scheme. The minimum subscription for the growth and income plan is Rs 5,000 per application and in multiples of Rs 500 thereafter. The minimum subscription in the PILP is Rs 15,000 per application and in multiples of Rs 5,000 thereafter. PIIP will have two options: growth and dividend. The growth scheme, PIGP, will have 95 per cent of its corpus invested in equity and 5 per cent in debt and money market.

 

The income scheme, PIIP, will have its 75 per cent corpus invested in debt and 25 per cent would be invested in money market instruments. The money market mutual fund, PILP, will have 80 per cent of its corpus invested in money and 20 per cent invested in debt.

All three schemes offer benefits for the long-term capital-gains tax under sec 54 EA and 54EB. The fund has already received an approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India last week.

Meanwhile, there has been an improved performance in the two schemes launched by the erstwhile ICICI AMC, ICICI Premier and ICICI Power. According to the statistics available with Business Standard, the net asset value of ICICI Premier was Rs 7.04 on February 24, 1998 prior to the takeover by Prudential. The NAV was Rs 9.22 as on May 11, 1998. While its benchmark index BSE 200 grew by 20.4 per cent during the period, the growth in the NAV of ICICI Premier was 30.9 per cent.

ICICI Power had an NAV of Rs 6.81 prior to the takeover. It stands at Rs 9.03 as of May 11, 1998. It outperformed BSE 200, its

benchmark index, by 12.2 per cent by clocking 32.6 per cent growth during the period.