IT may be lagging its arch rival where equity and equity derivative volumes are concerned. But there is some comfort for Bombay Stock Exchange as far as the mutual fund platform is concerned. BSE's mutual fund platform 'Star MF' is having an upper hand over National Stock Exchange's 'NEAT-MFSS' for the time being. If sources are to be believed, BSE has transacted fund units worth Rs 21 crore since December 4, when this facility was opened on the exchange, more than twice than that transacted on the NSE. Though both the exchanges have 10 fund houses listed with them, BSE has more schemes (over 130 schemes) that are eligible to be transacted through the exchange, say brokers. Moreover, BSE has gathered support from several financial advisors, who have been requested to advise their clients to trade through BSE. According to industry sources, the exchange has received confirmed participation from 15 other fund houses who are expected list their funds on the exchange over the next few days.
Being a part of the Tata group, the fund has the backing of a very trusted brand name with strong retail connect. While the current CEO has done an excellent job in leveraging the Tata brand name to AMC's advantage, it is ironic that this was just not capitalised on at the start. Incorporated in 1995, Tata Mutual Fund remained an 'also-ran' fund house for around eight years. Till March 2003, it had a little over Rs 1,000 crore in assets and 19 AMCs were ahead of it. But soon after that the equation changed. It was the fastest growing fund house in 2004 and 2005. During these two years, it aggressively launched six equity funds, two debt funds and one MIP. The fund house as of now stands at No. 8 in terms of asset size. This fund house has a lot to offer by way of choice. And, it also has a number of well performing schemes. Tata Pure Equity, Tata Equity PE and Tata Infrastructure are all good funds. It also has quite a few good debt funds. The funds of Tata AMC are known to...
