After a top quartile performance for three years, the fund found itself in the bottom quartile in 2009. But investors should not be in a hurry to write it off.
Fund manager Aniket Inamdar maintains a compact portfolio and limits his mid- and small-cap exposure to around 25 per cent of the portfolio.
With the number of stocks ranging from 20 to 31, one can expect concentrated stock bets. The top 10 holdings of the fund account for around 57 per cent of the portfolio. Though allocation to a single stock has exceeded nine per cent on many occasions, it is only in the large-cap bets.
The fund appears to follow a mixed strategy. While a few of the large-caps have been held since inception, a fifth of its portfolio comprises stocks held for five months or less. Inamdar says he doesn't churn the portfolio a lot; it is the range-bound market that has resulted in a higher than normal turnover ratio.
Despite the blip in performance last year, the fund has established a decent track record that makes it a worthy pick in this space. Its five-year annualised return of 22 per cent is higher than that of the category average (18 per cent) and the benchmark (18 per cent), as on August 31.
