Axis Long Term Equity
- Last Reviewed: June 2017
- Star Rating: 5 stars
- Analyst Rating: Silver
- Fund Manager: Jinesh Gopani
- Investment Process: The fund manager follows a high-conviction, benchmark-agnostic strategy that makes concentrated stock bets. The high-conviction portfolio is based on the team's ability to identify under-researched stocks.
Overall, we think that the fund has remained true to its mandate. Despite its recent short-term underperformance and the changes in the investment team, we think that Gopani is capable of turning things around. Our conviction in Gopani, his consistent and efficient execution of the strategy, and the positive long-term performance lead us to assign the fund a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Silver.
Read the brief analyst note here.
HDFC Tax Saver
- Last Reviewed: May 2017
- Star Rating: 2 stars
- Analyst Rating: Silver
- Fund Manager: Vinay Kulkarni
- Investment Process: A benchmark-agnostic portfolio, with allocation shifting in favor of large caps. The fund manager uses a bottom-up approach to scout for quality stocks, with a long-term orientation.
The investment process is key to our favourable view here: Kulkarni plies a multicap approach, investing roughly 70% in large caps and the remaining in small/mid-caps. Like all managers at HDFC Asset Management Company, he places a lot of emphasis on understanding the business and has an inherent quality bias while investing. We think Kulkarni's focus on the long-term strength of a business is a positive and it complements the broader style of investing followed by the investment team at the AMC.
Read the brief analyst note here.
Franklin India Taxshield Fund
- Last Reviewed: May 2017
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating: Bronze
- Fund Manager: Lakshmikanth Reddy
- Investment Process: Large-cap stocks dominate the portfolio. The fund manager follows a research-driven investment approach with a focus on reasonably valued stocks.
Last year, Lakshmikanth Reddy took over from Anand Radhakrishan. Earlier the fund had a more definite mandate of investing around 70% in large-cap stocks and the balance in small/mid-cap stocks. It is now managed with a flexi-cap approach. Although the investment team has a reasonably good track record in running flexi-cap strategies, it should be noted that it will also change the fund’s risk/reward profile going ahead. Further, the changes here have made the fund’s past track record less relevant.
Read the brief analyst note here.
Reliance Tax Saver (ELSS) Fund
- Last Reviewed: April 2017
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating: Bronze
- Fund Manager: Ashwani Kumar
- Investment Process: A concentrated fund that can vary its exposure across market caps. The fund manager looks for companies that he views as attractive growth opportunities at a reasonable price.
The fund has an experienced manager at its helm, is supported by a strong team, and has remained a true-to-label product. The unconstrained approach provides the manager adequate flexibility to choose stocks and sectors from across the board. However, such a strategy’s success relies heavily on the portfolio manager’s ability to execute it skillfully.
Read the brief analyst note here.
Sundaram Diversified Equity Fund
- Last Reviewed: April 2017
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating: Neutral
- Fund Manager: S. Krishnakumar
- Investment Process: The fund manager follows a well-defined process aimed at constructing a growth-oriented, multi-cap portfolio of high-conviction ideas.
The fund’s investment strategy has remained flexible, moving across market capitalisations. Its current exposure to mid-cap stocks in the portfolio ranges between 35% and 40%. However, this can change significantly based on its investment avenues. The fund is currently run with a slightly concentrated approach at a sector level with the manager deviating significantly from the index weightings.
Read the brief analyst note here.
L&T Tax Advantage Fund
- Last Reviewed: December 2016
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating: Neutral
- Fund Manager: Soumendra Nath Lahiri
- Investment Process: The focus is on companies that are efficient allocators of capital. The fund's market-cap allocation can change significantly.
The fund manager follows a benchmark-agnostic style of investing and aims to find companies through bottom-up stock-picking. He tends to invest in a lot of fresh ideas as a part of the portfolio. This can tend to give rise to a portfolio that is very distinct as compared with its peers. Risk management plays an important role in the process. Lahiri prefers running portfolios of 50-60 stocks and maintains a maximum individual stock exposure of about 6% in the portfolio.
Read the brief analyst note here.
DSP BlackRock Tax Saver Fund
- Last Reviewed: December 2016
- Star Rating: 4 stars
- Analyst Rating: Neutral
- Fund Manager: Rohit Singhania
- Investment Process: Growth-oriented bottom-up strategy at play. The manager adopts an unconstrained and unbiased approach while constructing the portfolio.
Singhania runs this fund in line with its investment mandate, which allows him to adopt a fluid investment approach without any bias or restrictions in terms of stocks or sectors. In the manager’s own words, this fund doesn’t have a defined investment approach; this provides him the liberty to capitalise on any investment opportunity that he sees in the market, provided it makes a grade on his selection parameters.
Read the brief analyst note here.
