ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund: Consistent in outperformance and holdings

ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund, launched in May 2008, has featured in the top 30 percentile of the large-cap fund category of CRISIL Mutual Fund Ranking (CMFR) for three consecutive quarters through March 2023.

The fund’s month-end assets under management increased to Rs 35,876 crore in April 2023, from Rs 21,765 crore in May 2020.

Anish Tawakley and Vaibhav Du­sad have been managing the fu­nd since 2018 and 2021, respectively.

The scheme’s investment obje­ctive is to generate long-term capital appreciation and income distribution to investors from a po­r­t­folio that is predominantly invested in equity and equity-related securities of large-cap companies.

Trailing returns

The fund has outperformed the benchmark (Nifty 100 Total Return Index) and its peers (funds ranked under the large-cap category in March 2023 CMFR) in the past one-, two-, three-, five-, seven-, and 10-year trailing periods.

To put this into perspective, Rs 10,000 invested in the fund on May 23, 2008, i.e., its inception, would have increased to Rs 71,330 on June 1, 2023, at an annualised rate of 13.96 per cent, compared with the category and the benchmark, which would have grown to Rs 44,813 (10.49 per cent per annum) and Rs 46,733 (10.84 per cent per annum), respectively.

A systematic investment plan 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 10 years in the fund, totalling Rs 12 lakh, would have grown to Rs 23.86 lakh (13.38 per cent annualised returns), compared with Rs 23.36 lakh (12.98 per cent annualised returns) in the benchmark as of June 1, 2023.

Portfolio analysis

In the past three years, the fund has made a predominant allocation to large-cap stocks (averaging 87.05 per cent).

Allocations to mid-cap and small-cap stocks averaged 6.64 per cent and 0.47 per cent, respectively.

The portfolio was diversified across 26 sectors. Banks dominated with an average allocation of 24.25 per cent, followed by software (12.70 per cent), petroleum produ­cts (8.70 per cent), finance (8.05 per cent), and automotive (6.63 per cent).

During the period under analysis, the fund took exposure to 103 stocks and held 33 consistently. The key contributing stocks to the portfolio were ICICI Bank, Infosys, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, and Axis Bank.