Prajna Capital - An Investment Guide

Canara Robeco Taxsaver has made a strong comeback from the wilderness with a new identity and has emerged as a strong competitor to some of the well-established diversified equity schemes in the tax saving category LAUNCHED in March 1993, Canara Robeco Taxsaver is one of the oldest, yet one of the smallest tax savings ( ELSS ) schemes in the country today with assets under management of just about Rs 80 crore. Known as Canequity Taxsaver earlier, this fund has seen a big turnaround in performance after its foreign partner – Robeco Groep NV of Netherlands, acquired 49% stake in the erstwhile Canbank asset management. PERFORMANCE In its 17 year long performance history, Canara Robeco Taxsaver has been just about an average performer until 2008. Barring the two block-buster years of 1998 and 1999, when the fund had raced way ahead of its benchmark index, the BSE 100, as well as the broader market indices – the Sensex and the Nifty, this fund had in fact failed to garner any investor inter...

Asset management companies ( AMCs ), which invest the pooled funds of retail investors in securities, are said to provide more diversification, liquidity, and professional management than individual investors can themselves manage. But a look at the stocks held by 28 asset management companies show that one-third of their assets is invested in only 10 stocks. Their favourite 10 being: RIL, SBI, Bharti, ONGC, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Bhel, L&T, HDFC Bank and HDFC. AMCs of fund-houses such as Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Benchmark Asset Management, Deutsche Asset Management and LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management have invested funds to the tune of Rs 200 crore to Rs 1,100 crore in these 10 stocks. This means that this type of top-heavy form of AMCs' equity portfolio could be affected by a swing in just a few stocks. As per latest data, AMCs held maximum assets in form of shares in RIL (Rs 4,592 crore), followed by SBI (Rs 3,855 crore), Bharti (Rs 3,508 crore), ONGC (Rs 2,995...