HDFC is King of Kings

The Value Research Fund Ratings for April, 2008 are out and this month, the top honour goes to HDFC Mutual Fund. The fund house has the maximum number (5) of 5-star rated funds.

Closely following HDFC for the fight for the second place are Standard Chartered Mutual Fund, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund and Tata Mutual Fund, each with four 5-star rated funds to boast of. The presence of Standard Chartered in this list is quite a revelation for the fund house; it had only two 5-star rated funds in March, 2008.

How They Stack Up… Fund House    «    ««    «««    ««««    ««««« ABN AMRO   1   2   2   1   1 Benchmark   2   -   1   1   - Birla Sunlife   3   6   16   11   4 BoB   3   5   1   -   1 Canara Robeco   1   1   6   4   - DBS Chola   2   5   2   1   2 Deutsche   1   2   1   2   3 DSP ML   2   3   5   3   3 Escorts   -   4   4   -   - Fidelity   1   -   -   1   - Franklin Templeton   -   5   17   13   2 HDFC   3   8   10   5   5 HSBC   -   2   5   4   3 ICICI Prudential   -   5   15   16   2 ING   1   2   7   5   - J M   1   8   3   1   - Kotak Mahindra   2   2   10   5   1 LIC   6   6   3   2   2 Principal   2   4   8   4   2 Quantum   -   -   1   -   - Reliance   2   2   6   6   2 Sahara   -   1   1   4   1 SBI   3   8   10   3   4 Standard Chartered   2   3   5   1   4 Sundaram BNP Paribas   2   6   7   3   - Tata   1   5   13   8   4 Taurus   4   2   1   -   - UTI Mutual Fund   4   10   11   5   3 Total    49    107    171    109    49 As on April 30, 2008

The highest number of 4-star rated funds (16) is held by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, which is followed by Franklin Templeton with 13 4-star rated funds. ICICI Prudential had a not-so-good month; two of its four 5-star rated funds from the previous month lost the highest rank. But ICICI Prudential still leads the pack when 5-star and 4-star funds are compared; it has 18 of them in all.

In the category of equity diversified funds there are 10 5-star rated funds and 24 4-star rated funds. Four diversified equity funds have managed to become a part of the elite category of 5-star rated funds for the first time, which include: HSBC Equity, DWS Investment Opportunity, DSPML Top 100 Equity and DSPML Equity Fund.

In the category of debt funds, six funds have been elevated from the 4-star position to acquire the prestigious 5-star status. These include: Tata Liquid Super HI, Sahara Liquid Fixed Pricing, HSBC Floating Rate LT, HDFC HI Short Term, Grindlays GSF Investment and Grindlays Dynamic Bond.

This month the family of rated funds added 15 new funds, bringing the total members to 485. 0f these, 10 are from the liquid plus category, which is being rated for the first time. From this category, DWS Money Plus has made to the 5-star category straightaway while HSBC Liquid Plus Regular and ABN AMRO Money Plus Regular have got a 4-star rating.

The funds which were pushed down to the lowest rating grade are: UTI Master Value, Nifty Junior BeEs, Kotak MNC, Kotak Mid Cap, ING Treasury Management, HDFC Gilt Long Term, and DWS Premier Bond Regular.

In all, there were 37 upgrades and 35 downgrades in the month while 398 maintained a status quo.