Books
Columnists
Insurance
Interview
Mutual Funds
NRI
Personal Finance
Personal Banking
Real Estate
Stocks
Tax
Travel

Birla MNC Fund

Dhirendra Kumar

Birla MNC fund (erstwhile Apple Goldshare), launched in April 1994 as a diversified closed-end equity scheme, was converted into an open-end scheme in June 1998. The fund after the takeover by Birla Sunlife AMC has been relaunched as a fund to invest in Multi National Companies across wide ranging sectors. The fund paid a 25 per cent dividend in its dividend option in February, 2000. The fund charges a 2 per cent entry load while redemption is at NAV.

With the primary market booming at the time of its launch, Goldshare having committed heavily to small-cap aquaculture, floriculture and finance IPO stocks, was stuck with non-performing junk stocks as the boom went bust. Reflecting the performance, Goldshare traded at a hefty discount for much of its close end tenure. The revamping of the portfolio over 1997 and 1998 weeded out the illiquid stocks and took aggressive positions in IT, FMCG and Pharma stocks. The restructuring helped the fund touch par value after three years in April 1998. It was around this time the conversion into an open-end fund was announced.

With its growth oriented portoflio the fund in calendar 1999 gained 270 per cent on the back of buoyancy in the markets. Though, the fund has since its launch given an annualised return of 21 per cent against a 4.2 per cent return by the sensex, the fund in its new avatar since December 1999, has lost 13.9 per cent. However, in the last two months the fund has been gradually heading northwards. The fund, currently, is invested in the sectors of IT, Pharma and FMCG with an average 22 per cent exposure in each. The fund also has moderate stakes in Power Equipments (5 per cent), Engineering & Electronics (6.5 per cent) and Auto (4 per cent). The fund has off-beat stocks of Telecom Equipment and Electronics in Framatone Conn and C-Mac Centum Electronics respectively. The fund also has concentrated bets in stocks with top 5 stocks accounting for 42 per cent of the net assets.

Birla MNC is a fund with a distinct investment focus. The change in the focus of the fund conincided with the stocks of several MNCs, especially in the sectors of pharma and fmcg sectors performing poorly in the markets. The recent upturn in the performance of the fund can be only taken as a momentary thing given that the prices of the pharma and fmcg stocks are yet to stabilise. Nevertheless, considering the long-term potential of these sectors, it might be just the right time to invest in this fund.

Fund Basics
Objective	Size (Cr)	NAV: 7/7/2000	Exit Price	Entry Price	Total Returns (%)
Sector Fund	87.8	32.68	32.68	33.33	-13.9%
Benchmark Comparisons (%)					30/6/2000
	1M	3M	6M	1Yr	3Yr
Fund	4.7	-8.7	-16.5	-	-
Nifty Total	6.7	-3.1	0.2	29.0	8.8
Sensex	7.1	-5.0	-5.1	14.7	3.7
Obj Avg	7.5	-10.4	-0.5	34.5	46.8
Top Holdings (30/6/2000)					Net assets (%)
Hughes Software					12.70
Hindustan Lever					9.09
Pfizer					8.85
German Remedies					6.00
Digital Equipment (India)					5.42
Cadbury India					5.21
Asea Brown Boveri					5.18
Hero Honda					4.93
Cummins India					3.82
Novartis India					3.33
PSI Data Systems					3.33
Birla 3M Ltd.					3.30
Hoechst Marion Roussel					3.14
Indian Shaving Products					2.26
Otis Elevator					2.12
Reckitt Coleman					1.80
Wyeth Lederle					1.67
Framatone Conn(OEN)					1.64
C-Mac Centum Electron					1.48

Source: Value Research

Fund File

Tell us what you think of this feature