Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund launches closed-ended equity fund

Chennai, Apr 12 (UNI) Leading mutual funds, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund today launched its new three year closed-ended equity fund that aims at generating consistent long-term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity-related securities of small and mid cap companies.

The performance of the 'Birla Sun Life Long Term Advantage Fund- Series-I' would be benchmarked against the BSE 500 Index.

Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund would target the small and medium companies as it had the potential of generating superior returns during the next three years, Company CEO Mukul Gupta said here.

"Mid and small cap companies now quote at a substantial discount to the large companies and hence offer better risk to reward and investment opportunities," Mr Gupta said.

The closed-ended nature of the fund would allow fund managers the flexibility to focus on long term wealth creation, without unduly worrying about short term liquidity concerns, he said.

This fund would invest in a portfolio of attractively priced small and mid cap stocks that were expected to post attractive growth, he said.

'BSLAF-Series 1,' would try to construct a portfolio with an endeavour to out perform its benchmark index, he said.

In an upward trending market, investing in a closed-ended fund would prevent from encashing too early and thereby miss the larger rally.

"Apart from this, the company is also planning to open 50 more branches across the country", he said, adding "in Tamil Nadu we will open atleast eight branches especially in the tier-II cities".

Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Ltd, since its inception in October 1994, had emerged as one of India's leading AMCs with over Rs 22,000 crore of assets under management and an investor base of over one million.

It offered a range of comprehensive investment options, which had included diversified and sector specific equity schemes, hybrid funds and a wide range of debt and treasury products.

UNI