Sundaram Services Fund gives 15.4%

Sundaram Mutual Fund’s Sundaram Services Fund, India’s first mutual fund scheme focused on the services sector has delivered 15.4 per cent return in the very first year of operation, beating the benchmark BSE 200 Index return at 1.8 per cent and Sensex return at 6.1 per cent.

Sundaram Services Fund invests in fifteen distinct sub-sectors across banks, retailing, finance, hotel/ resorts and other recreational activities, healthcare services, media and entertainment, telecom, utilities, software, services, transportation, commercial services, and other across market capitalization.

Sundaram Mutual announced 8 per cent dividend pay out given the capital appreciation that the fund has generated, translating into a dividend pay out of 80 paise per unit of face value of Rs 10 with record date as October 15, 2019.

Commenting on the performance of Sundaram Services, Sunil Subramaniam, Managing Director and CEO, Sundaram Mutual said, “The services sector, which accounts for 54 per cent of GDP achieved the second fastest growth rate in the world at 7.4 per cent in 2018. The fund has been able to take advantage of this growth. At the same time, equity market has been quite volatile in last one year. Hence the fund managers have judiciously staggered the deployment of the fund over market ups and downs.”

The fund with asset under management of Rs 1,216 crore as on September 30, 2019 has 44 stocks in the portfolio. The top ten stocks account for 46.5 per cent of the portfolio. Currently 49.4 per cent of the portfolio is in large cap stocks, 20.2 per cent in MidCaps and 23.2 per cent in Small Caps, Sundaram Mutual Fund said.

The top five large cap holding in the portfolio of Sundaram are HDFC (7.7 per cent), ICICI (6.8 per cent), Kotak Mahindra (4.7 per cent), ICICI Lombard (4.1 per cent) and, Bharti Airtel (4.1 per cent).Top five Mid-Small Cap were Trent (4.8 per cent), Indraprastha Gas (4.0 per cent), Inox Leisure (3.1 per cent), Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail (2.5 per cent) and Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India (2.4 per cent).