The mutual fund industry seems to be back pedaling to expand its footprints by swiftly penetrating in new asset classes via a string of new and improved products.
Talking about 2013, the year alone scored the launched of 17 new mutual funds as opposed to only 10 mutual funds introduced in 2012. As of November 2013, new funds launched during 2013 were able to fetch an additional AUM size of Rs12.4 billion.
With the growing trend in the mutual fund industry, asset management companies are constantly making imperative strides to increase their investor base by bringing in cutting-edge mutual fund products to cater the demands of existing and potential investors.
As of today, there are a total of 148 open-end funds and 5 close-end funds in Pakistan. In line with the number of funds, the size of the asset management industry has tremendously grown over the past as it has been able to gather funds worth Rs351 billion as of November 2013, up from Rs180 billion in January 2010.
Intriguingly in 2013, with the equity market jacking up to touch fresh highs, the inclination was spotted towards funds that are able to take advantage of rising equity market, as 11 out of 17 new funds were those that bear equity exposure in their asset mix to some extent.
Amongst the state-of-the-art diversified portfolio allocations offered by these mutual funds recently, the industry at this instant is rising up to make its way towards the fund of funds scheme as opposed to conventional equity or fixed income funds. As at the end of 2012, there were just 3 funds under the fund of funds category, whereas in 2013, additional 6 funds were launched under the same scheme, thus taking the total fund size of fund of funds scheme to Rs4 billion from Rs0.59 billion at the beginning of 2013.
The aggressive marketing and investor awareness initiatives adopted by the asset management companies seem to be bearing its fruits as is evident by their awe-inspiring performance in terms of returns earned and the asset management size.
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