NFONEST

August 2020

After a lone New Fund Offer (NFO) made its appearance in June 2020, July 2020 and August 2020 have just two NFOs open in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.    

Nippon India Multi Asset Fund

Opens: August 7, 2020

Closes: August 21, 2020

Nippon Life India Mutual Fund has launched Nippon India Multi Asset Fund. It is an open-ended scheme that will invest across asset classes like equity, debt and commodities to provide benefits of growth, stability and diversification. The primary investment objective of Nippon India Multi Asset Fund is to seek long term capital growth by investing in equity and equity related securities, debt and money market instruments and Exchange Traded Commodity Derivatives and Gold ETF as permitted by SEBI from time to time. SEBI defines a Multi Asset Fund as a scheme which invests in at least three asset classes with a minimum allocation of at least 10% each in all three asset classes. The fund will invest 50% to 80% in equity and equity related securities (including overseas securities/Overseas ETF), 10% to 20% in debt and money market instruments and 10% to 30% in the commodities, including gold Exchange Traded Funds. The benchmark of this scheme is 50% of S&P BSE 500, 20% of CRISIL Short Term Bond Fund Index and 30% of Thompson Reuters – MCX iCOMDEX Composite Index. The fund will be managed by Manish Gunwani, CIO - Equity Investments along with Ashutosh Bhargava, Fund Manager and Head Equity Research, Kinjal Desai, Fund Manager - Overseas; Amit Tripathi CIO - Fixed Income and Vikram Dhawan Head – Commodities. Investors tend to have a home-bias and invest mainly into domestic equities. It is important for investors to have a foot in every major investible asset classes, including international equities and commodities, which could help them balance returns across cycles.

Mahindra Manulife Arbitrage Yojana

Opens: August 12, 2020

Closes: August 19, 2020

Mahindra Manulife Mutual Fund has launched Mahindra Manulife Arbitrage Yojana for investment in arbitrage opportunities. It is an open-ended fund for investment in arbitrage opportunities available in equity, derivatives and debt markets. The fund, under normal circumstances, would invest a minimum of 65-100 percent in equity and equity-related instruments, including equity derivatives, up to 35 percent in debt and money market securities including tri-party repo, reverse repo. Under defensive circumstances, the scheme would invest 0- 65 percent in equity and equity-related instruments, including equity derivatives, up to 35-100 percent in debt and money market securities, including tri-party repo, reverse repo, and up to 10 percent in units issued by REITs & InvITs. The arbitrage yojana is suitable for investors seeking income through arbitrage opportunities between cash and derivative market and arbitrage opportunities within the derivative segment over the short term. The scheme will use several strategies to identify arbitrage opportunities across market cycles and offer returns at relatively lower volatility and lower risk. The fund is benchmarked against the Nifty 50 Arbitrage Index TRI. The fund managers are Mr. Srinivasan Ramamurthy for the equity portion and Mr. Rahul Pal for the debt portion.

HSBC Corporate Debt Fund, Edelweiss MSCI India Financials Index Fund, Axis Value Fund, Baroda Value Fund, Motilal Oswal Asset Allocation Index Fund of Fund – Conservative,  Motilal Oswal Asset Allocation Index Fund of Fund – Aggressive, Motilal Oswal 5 Year G-Sec ETF and Invesco India Feeder – Invesco Global Consumer Trends Fund are expected to be launched in the coming months.