The number of fund houses are increasing each year in the fast growing Indian economy but when it comes about the size, the top five players control over half of the country's mutual fund business.
An analysis of average assets under management (AUM) by over 40 fund houses shows that the top five layers - Reliance MF, HDFC MF, ICICI MF, UTI MF and Birla Sun Life - together control more than half of the total assets managed by the MF industry in India.
The Indian mutual fund industry is valued worth Rs 7 lakh crore as per the latest data available with the industry association, Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI).
And putting together, these top five fund houses own assets worth nearly Rs 4 lakh crore, which is about 55 per cent of the average AUM of all the fund houses.
A number of new players are entering the field each year. Only recently, capital market regulator SEBI gave its green signal to financial houses like Union Bank of India, India Infoline and Indiabulls to operate MF business.
The total assets under management (AUM) of 41 fund houses in the country rose to Rs 7,00,538 crore (Rs 7 trillion) at the end of March, according to AMFI data.
At the end of last month, the AUM of the largest MF in India, Reliance MF stood at Rs 1,01,576.60 crore (Rs 1.01 trillion).
This was followed by HDFC MF whose average assets stood at Rs 86,282.24 crore (Rs 862.82 billion) and ICICI Prudential MF with an AUM of Rs 73,466.10 crore (Rs 734.66 billion).
Besides, UTI MF's assets stood at Rs 67,188.82 crore (Rs 671.88 billion) and Birla Sun Life at Rs 63,696.2 crore (Rs 636.96 billion) in end-March, 2011.
The total AUM of the remaining 36 fund houses currently stands at about Rs 3.09 lakh crore. The MF industry, which is facing withdrawal pressure, saw their asset base dwindle over the last year.
The average AUMs of the industry declined by over 6 per cent in March-end, from Rs 7.47 lakh crore at the end of March 31, 2010.
An analysis of the movement of AUMs of the fund houses ever since March 2010 shows that only 16 players have witnessed growth in Average Asset Under Management (AAUM) compared to 23 AMCs which registered a decline.
Two new fund houses started operations in 2010. Comparatively, smaller fund houses like Fidelity MF and Mirae Asset MF, witnessed an increase in their AUM.
At the end of March, this year, the AUM of Fidelity MF stood at Rs 9074.4 crore (up 18 per cent), Mirae Asset at Rs 379.5 crore (up 51.2 per cent), Benchmark MF at Rs 3,403.6 crore (up 70.2 per cent) and Axis MF at Rs 8,301.7 crore (up 134 per cent).
"Fidelity has seen increased inflows in both equity and fixed income schemes. We saw investors preferring systemic investments plans (SIPs) to put in small amount of money rather than making lump-sum payment," Fidelity International India Country Head Ashu Suyash told PTI. However, bigger fund houses like Reliance MF saw a decline of 8 per cent in its assets, HDFC MF (- 2.8 per cent), ICICI Prudential MF (- 9 per cent) and UTI MF (- 16 per cent) since March, 2010.
