Altiva Hybrid Long-Short Fund delivers 13.62% annualised return in 6 months, beats benchmark

Altiva Hybrid Long-Short Fund delivered an annualised return of 13.62% in the six months ended July 31, 2026, significantly outperforming its benchmark, the NIFTY 50 Hybrid Composite Debt 50:50 Index, which recorded an annualised return of -0.74% over the same period. The fund’s Regular-Growth plan also delivered a 12.59% annualised return, according to Edelweiss Mutual Fund’s July portfolio update.

The fund, which was launched on October 20, 2025, has also generated a 12.89% annualised return for its Direct-Growth plan since inception, compared with a -1.84% annualised return for the benchmark. The Regular-Growth plan returned 11.81% over the same period.

The performance

The performance comes from a strategy that does not depend solely on the direction of the equity market. Altiva Hybrid Long-Short Fund combines equity and debt investments with arbitrage, derivatives and special situations. Its stated objective is to generate capital appreciation through equity and equity-related instruments while generating income through arbitrage, derivatives strategies, special situations and fixed-income investments.

As of July 31, fixed income accounted for 39.49% of the portfolio, while cash-future arbitrage and covered-call strategies represented around 38%. The fund also had around 9% allocated to other derivative strategies and approximately 5% to REITs and InvITs.

The fund manager said fixed-income exposure remained focused on high-quality instruments, with blended yield-to-maturity improving to around 8% and portfolio duration declining to approximately 1.5 years. Meanwhile, covered-call exposure increased as available arbitrage spreads became relatively less attractive.

The defensive characteristics of the strategy were particularly visible during the March market sell-off. While the Nifty 50 declined 11.31%, the fund fell only 1.53%. Since inception, its reported volatility has been around 3.4%, compared with 14.3% for the Nifty 50, while it generated positive returns on more than two-thirds of trading days.

Source: Edelweiss Mutual Fund; data as of July 31, 2026.

What Is a Hybrid Long-Short SIF?

Altiva’s strategy also provides a window into the emerging Specialized Investment Fund, or SIF, category. SIFs operate within the mutual fund structure but are designed to provide more flexible investment strategies than conventional mutual fund schemes. The presentation describes SIFs as combining a tight regulatory framework and taxation efficiency with greater investment flexibility.

The SIF framework also allows strategies that are more sophisticated than those generally available through conventional mutual funds, while retaining the mutual-fund regulatory framework. Altiva’s approach illustrates this distinction: investors get access to market-neutral and long-short techniques without moving entirely into the higher minimum-investment and leverage framework associated with AIFs.

Altiva’s minimum investment is ₹10 lakh across its SIF strategies, compared with ₹100 for mutual funds, ₹50 lakh for PMS and ₹1 crore for AIFs. The SIF structure also permits limited short exposure through unhedged derivatives, up to 25%, while leverage is not permitted. By comparison, the presentation notes that Category III AIFs can use leverage with gross exposure of up to 200%.

Altiva is therefore positioned between traditional mutual funds and more flexible alternative investment structures. Its Hybrid Long-Short strategy seeks to combine income-oriented core exposures with selective opportunities in derivatives and special situations, offering investors a different route to pursue returns while attempting to contain portfolio volatility.