Birla Equity Plan

Dhirendra Kumar

Birla Equity Plan, erstwhile Birla Tax Plan is an open-ended equity linked savings scheme. Investments up to Rs 10,000 in the scheme carry a rebate of 20 per cent under Section 88 with a lock-in period of three years. While entry into the fund is at a load of 2 per cent, the same is waived for the systematic investment plan (SIP) investor. Exit from the fund is at NAV. The fund paid a maiden dividend of 25 per cent in April 2000.

Birla Equity Plan has posted a 66.6 per cent return since launch in February 1999, riding the bull rally in growth stocks. In the process, the fund outpaced the Nifty Total Return (adjusted for dividends) index, which has posted a 27 per cent return in the same period.

The fund started off with a diversified portfolio of blue-chip growth stocks of Infotech, Pharma and FMCG in 1999. However, with the market taking a fancy for technology stocks since the last quarter of 1999, the fund has hiked its exposure to these stocks. Today, the fund holds concentrated bets with the technology sector holding a lion’s share at 67 per cent. Of which Infosys, Visual Software and SSI account for 40 per cent of the corpus. While raking in excellent returns, tech stocks have also lent a fair degree of volatility to the fund. In the current year, which has seen one of the most volatile periods, the fund has lost one-fifth of its NAV.

Despite the meltdown, the fund has continued to focus on the ICE theme. While Birla Equity is volatile with its aggressive strategy, investments through the systematic investment plan and beyond the minimum three years of investment should benefit.

Fund Basics
Objective	Size (Cr)	NAV: 30/8/2000	Exit Price	Entry Price	Total Returns(%)
Growth	40.68	20.16	20.16	20.57	66.63%
Benchmark Comparisons (%)					18/8/2000
	1M	3M	6M	1Yr	3Yr
Fund	1.3	8.7	-37.5	72.9	—
Nifty tot.ret.	2.4	10.9	-18.5	1.7	7.9
Sensex	1.9	10.4	-21.5	-6.4	3.0
Obj. Avg.	3.0	11.3	-31.8	18.2	19.8
Top Holdings (31/7/2000)					Net assets (%)
Infosys Tech					18.22
Visualsoft Tech.					12.02
SSI					9.81
Satyam Computer					7.99
Subex Infosystem					5.01
Hindustan Inks & Resins					4.33
Moser Baer					3.32
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals					2.65
Sun Pharmaceutical					2.26
Polaris Software					2.11

Source: Value Research

Fund File

Money

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