Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Limited launches Kotak Banking & Financial Services Fund
Mumbai: Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Ltd (“KMAMC” / “Kotak Mutual Fund”) today announced the launch of Kotak Banking & Financial Services Fund, an open-ended equity scheme investing in the Banking and Financial Services sectors.
The scheme opens for public subscription on February 6th, 2023 and closes on February 20th, 2023. Investors can invest a minimum amount of Rs 5,000 and subsequently in multiples of Re.1 for purchase and Re 0.01 for switches during the NFO period. The investment objective of this actively managed sectoral fund is to generate long term capital appreciation from a portfolio that is invested predominantly in equity and equity related securities of companies engaged in banking and financial services sector. However, there can be no assurance that the investment objective of the scheme would be achieved.
Banks are a significant part of the banking and financial services segment and are generally seen growing at 1.5 to 2.0 times the rate at which the economy grows. Hence, a continued growth momentum in the economy is likely to aid this sector going ahead.
Shibani Sircar Kurian, Senior EVP, Fund Manager & Head -Equity Research at Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund said, “We are happy to offer this fund to our customers. In India , the BFSI sector has a long way to go, considering the under penetration as compared to global averages, be it in mutual funds where only 7% of the Indian population has a fund folio compared to 23% globally, or life insurance where there is only 3% premium proportion to GDP vis a vis 10% of top 5 countries, non-life insurance penetration being less than 1% compared to 4% globally and also amongst Bank branches with just 15 branches per 1000 population compared to 27 branches in developed countries. All of this offers a growth potential within the sector.”*
Among the key features, the fund offers diversification opportunities within the segment, including investment in banks, non-banks, insurance, broking, asset management, and fintech. Besides, the fund would also look for investment opportunities across all market caps and sub-sectors in the banking and financial services space. As a part of the key investment metric, the fund manager would have a bottom-up approach in identifying companies with strong fundamentals using the Business, Management, Valuation (BMV) approach.