Mutual fund exposure to corporate bonds nearly flat in five years

Fund managers' preference for sovereign bonds in the recent past has also impacted MFs' corporate bond investments

The Rs 50 trillion domestic mutual fund (MF) industry has seen its corporate bond holdings largely stagnate over the past five years.

Actively-managed debt funds, which have the flexibility to invest larger portions of their corpus in corporate paper, were managing Rs 6.73 trillion at the end of April 2019.

Fast forward to last month, their assets had barely grown by 9 per cent to Rs 7.3 trillion. This is despite the overall industry assets under management (AUM) doubling during this period, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). The AUM includes the assets of