Date:23/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/11/23/stories/2006112304601500.htm

Back SBI Mutual launches One India Fund

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It is a three-year close-ended fund

NEW FUND OFFER: Syed Shahabuddin (right), Managing Director & CEO, SBI Mutual Fund, with Mr Didier Turpin, Deputy CEO, at the launch of SBI One India Fund in Mumbai on Wednesday. - Paul Noronha

Mumbai , Nov. 22

SBI Mutual Fund has launched SBI One India Fund, a three-year close-ended fund investing in a diversified portfolio of stocks of companies across the four regions of the country along with debt and money market instruments.

The fund will open on November 24 and close on December 22. It will reopen for continuous repurchase from January 17.

The minimum initial investment is Rs 5,000 and will have growth and dividend options.

"SBI One India fund will invest at least 15 per cent and not more than 55 per cent of the equity corpus in every geographical region. Our investment philosophy would be a `bottom up' approach identifying growth-oriented companies across the four regions of the country without any sectoral or market capitalization bias," said Syed Shahabuddin, Managing Director and CEO, SBI Mutual Fund.

The fund will achieve portfolio diversification through a region-specific approach and will incorporate best performers from each region. There will be an investment team for each region and four regional portfolios will be aggregated into one portfolio, said Mr Sanjay Sinha, Head of Equity, SBI Mutual Fund. It will be benchmarked against the BSE 200 index.

The fund would invest minimum 70 per cent in equity and equity-related instruments with the balance going into debt and money market instruments.