Axis Mutual Fund AUM jumps 35% so far in FY16

The asset under management for Axis Mutual Fund has jumped 35 percent to around Rs 36,000 crore so far in the current fiscal. "In March 2015, our AUM was about Rs 26,600 crore and now it is about Rs 36,000 crore," Axis Mutual Fund managing director and chief executive Chandresh Nigam said here today at the launch of children gift fund in city. Axis MF officials said increase in fund value and net fresh inflows had resulted in such healthy growth in AUM.

Nigam said children gift fund allocation will be done in a way that this fund will be treated as equity for tax treatment. "We will make allocation of the fund in a fashion that for tax treatment defination it will be a equity fund," Nigam said. Axis MF aims to make direct equity allocation of 60 percent, in hedge class the allocation will be than five percent, making the fund defination it can be classified as equity fund.

This scheme can only be subscribed for children upto 18 years. The company was aggressively marketing this scheme with lot of engagement with parents to make them aware about the purpose of the scheme. Nigam said the MF aims to have one lakh account in the NFO period and in due couse total number of accounts should increase to three lakh.

The fund, which opens on November 18, will close on December 2. It will reopen for continuous sale and repurchase on or before December 14. "We are looking at mopping up Rs 600-700 crore from the Children's Gift Fund during the NFO period itself," Nigam had said.

The fund will comprise two plans - direct plan and regular plan - with each offering two sub plans, compulsory lock-in and no lock-in. Some of the fund houses which are already having children fund include HDFC MF, UTI MF and LIC Nomura MF. Even as retail AUM (Assets Under Management) of the mutual fund industry currently stands at over Rs 3 trillion, merely 1 percent of this AUM is being contributed by children's fund.