Headless UTI MF tops AAUM growth for September quarter

Despite the turmoil surrounding its top management and the fact that it has remained headless for long, UTI Mutual Fund has topped the charts for the September 2012 quarter in terms of average assets under management (AAUM), with AAUM rising a hefty Rs 9861 crore during the quarter.

Latest figures supplied by Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) show that UTI MF’s market share is also growing, and now stands at 9.47 percent, up from the previous quarter’s figure of 8.79 percent.

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The top mutual fund in terms of assets as of the September 2012 quarter continues to be HDFC Mutual Fund, with Rs 97,773 crore of AAUM, and a market share of 13.08 percent, followed by Reliance MF with Rs 86,327 crore of AAUM (11.55 percent) and ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund with Rs 76,388 crore (10.22 percent).

The AMFI figures also show that UTI MF’s AAUM growth during the quarter has been much quicker than that of its other competitors, with the next quickest growth rate clocked by Birla Sun Life MF at Rs 5698 crore, or 8.48 percent during the quarter.

UTI MF has been in the news of late owing to the government’s inability to fill up the top slot at the fund house.

The mutual fund industry’s total AUM stood at Rs 7,47,230 crore for the September quarter and the increase in AAUM for the industry as a whole stood at a hefty Rs 82,439 crore. The benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex has been strong over the past several weeks, and even on 4 October, the Sensex rose sharply, gaining 188 points to end the day at 19,058, with expectations of a second wave of reform from the UPA government being widely discussed in market circles.

The turnaround in fortunes of UTI MF and the overall healthy situation in the mutual funds industry should come as a welcome sign for small investors, since for many of them mutual funds are the preferred route of investments into the capital markets.