51 Indian MFs in world's top-100 stock funds

Silicon India
MUMBAI: "51 India-focused funds were among the world's top 100 performing stock funds in the quarter to June," reports Lipper, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, which provides mutual and hedge fund information, analytical tools, data and commentary. This growth seems to be the result of leap in domestic shares by nearly 50 percent during April-June'09. After Vietnam, this is the fastest growth in Asia on signs of economic recovery and hopes for market-friendly policies by the re-elected Congress-lead government.

All top five Indian funds part of the Lipper's top-100 list are infrastructure or property funds. The list has been lead by Naya Bharat Property Company fund, domiciled in the Isle of Man, which gave a return of nearly 135 percent, followed by JM Core 11 Fund, a concentrated 11-stock portfolio, which rose more than 100 percent. Fund houses JM Financial Asset Management and Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund have four funds each in the list, while Benchmark, India's passive fund manager, DBS Cholamandalam, SBI Funds Management and Taurus Mutual Fund had three schemes each.

The Lipper's list of 29,942 world stock funds with a track record of at least a quarter showed India funds recording an average 50.45 percent jump in their net values in three months to June as compared to just over 18 per cent gain for the fund group.
Rajeev Baddepudi, a Senior Research Analyst for ASEAN at Lipper says, "Stocks in India were spurred on by a steady diet of positive macro data and the strong victory of the incumbent Congress party in national elections mid-May."

The gain was the biggest rise for the benchmark in any quarter since it soared 124.5 per cent in January-March in 1992 when Manmohan Singh, the then finance minister, kicked off reforms to open up the economy.