Encouraged by the buoyancy in the mutual fund market, SBI Mutual Fund has lined up several products for launching over next few months.

The pick of the new pack of products is a short term scheme to be marketed under the banner of Magnum NRI Fund.

"We have already received Sebi approval for the product and it will be launched next month," said PGR Prasad, managing director of SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd.

Sources said, the lunching of this first NRI specific fund from the SBI MF stable is in tune with the parent company SBI's intention to retain a substantial portion of the maturity value of Resurgence India Bond as reinvestment. The term of RIB subscribed by the NRIs is maturing in October.

On marketing of the Magnum NRI Fund, Prasad said, "Marketing of the product in the US is ruled out because of legal reasons."

"We may not be also looking at Europe or Canada at present", he pointed out, adding, "Our main target for the scheme is NRIs in the Middle East". The company will soon go for road shows to attract investment to the scheme in this part of the world soon.

The NRI specific scheme will have three plans-a short-term income fund, a long-term income fund and flexi fund.

The one of the unique features of the short-term plan is that its subscription period will be zero to 12 months, thus benefiting the NRIs looking for investment opportunities for very short duration, Prasad said, adding the minimum subscription amount for the scheme is Rs 50,000.

This apart, the SBI MF proposes to launch a Institutional Income Scheme by November end for which it is now awaiting Sebi approval.

Targeted at institutional and corporate clients, the scheme intends to operate on a reduced expense ratio, he pointed out.

Other schemes in the pipeline included a gilt scheme primarily aiming to mop up investment from provident fund accounts and a portfolio management scheme for high net-worth individuals and corporates.

The proposals for these schemes will be submitted to Sebi for approval shortly and we hope to launch them by December-January, Prasad said. He was here to launch the magnum income fund of the company.

With aggressive marketing of the existing schemes and launching of new schemes, he said, the size of the assets managed by the company is expected to go upt to Rs 6,500 to 7,000 crore (Rs 65-70 billion) by the end of current fiscal from Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion) at present.