Union Mutual Fund announces launch of new fund offer (NFO) for the Union Value Discovery Fund, which is an open-ended equity scheme investing in value companies. The NFO was initiated on November 14 and will end on November 28, 2018. The scheme will re-open for repurchase and sale of units on December 12, 2018.
The scheme will invest between 65 percent to 100 percent of assets in stocks of value companies. Value stocks are the ones that investors deem as potentially undervalued or trading below their intrinsic value. Investments in debt and money market instruments are capped at 35 percent.
Union joins its peers ICICI Prudential, Aditya Birla Sun Life, L&T India, who already have schemes that are focused on value investing. The five-year returns for Aditya Birla Sun Life Pure Value Fund are 24.26 percent and five-year returns for ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund are 20.10 percent, as on November 13, 2018. In comparison, Union Mutual Fund (the AMC as a whole) does not hold any percentage of its assets in 5- and 4-star funds, according to Value Research, as on September 30, 2018.
The Union Value Discovery Fund will utilise the S&P BSE 200 Index as its benchmark. The scheme will be benchmarked with the Total Returns of the Index (TRI).
| Index Name | 1-yr Total Returns (%) | 3-yr Total Returns (%) | 5-yr Total Returns (%) |
| S&P BSE 200 Index | -0.98 | 10.69 | 13.77 |
The fund will be managed by Vinay Paharia. Paharia co-manages schemes like Union Equity Fund, Union Asset Allocation Fund, Union Small Cap Fund, Union Equity Savings Fund and Union Balanced Advantage Fund. Among these, the Union Asset Allocation Fund has five-year returns at 7.53 percent.
Key information about the Union Value Discovery Fund NFO:
| NFO period | November 14 – November 28, 2018 |
| Minimum investment | Rs. 5,000 |
| Exit load | 1 percent exit load, if units redeemed or switched out within one year of allotment date; No exit load thereafter |
| Benchmark | S&P BSE 200 Index TRI |
| Fund manager | Vinay Paharia |