Birla Sun Life: A safe player

Birla Sun Life is a 15-year-old fund house and is very strong on debt. The bulk of its debt assets is in cash funds. In 2004, the fund house bought Alliance Capital AMC, which brought 14 new fund schemes into its fold.

Asset allocation
The break-up of assets worth Rs 6,290 crore for equity funds, balanced funds and monthly income plans.
Equities - 74.96%
Cash - 1.69%
Debt - 23.35%

Top 5 fund schemes
The top scheme, which happens to be a debt fund, accounts for almost 32% of the AUM.
Savings Fund: 31.6%
Cash Plus: 3.5%
Short Term Fund: 5.9%
Income Plus: 12.4%
Dynamic Bond Fund: 13.8%

20	40	60	80	100	Return percentile
20	40	60	80	100	Risk percentile

Fund house style
The fund house lost momentum when two of its best managers—Navneet Munot (debt) and Jayesh Gandhi (equity)—left in December 2007. But with A. Balasubramanian, who is now the CIO, the fund house has been performing steadily even in these volatile markets.

Hit hard
The profits of the fund house came down by 80% in 2007-8 compared with the previous year. This was primarily due to the FBT that it paid.
2006-7:  Rs 14.2 crore
2007-8:  Rs 2.7 crore

Top 5 equity holdings
The top five holdings comprise the best scrips in the large-cap space.
Reliance Industries: 8.4%
Bharti Airtel: 6.5%
ITC Oil & Natural: 4.6%
Gas Corpn: 4.4%
Infosys Technologies: 4.3%

If you had invested Rs 10,000 on 1 January 2000 in the Birla Sun Life Equity Fund (G), it would be worth Rs 26,004 on 3 March 2009, an absolute growth of 160%.