Stock market meltdown last month led to an erosion of over Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) in the total assets of the mutual fund industry by the end of January.
Almost all the leading fund houses, except ICICI Prudential, witnessed a drop of Rs 3,000-5,000 crore (Rs 30 to Rs 50 billion) in their assets led by Reliance MF and UTI MF.
The combined assets under management of the 32 fund houses in the country fell to Rs 5,49,114.82 crore (Rs 5,491.14 billion) in January, against Rs 5,49,942.02 crore (Rs 5,499.42 billion) at the end of December, 2007, latest data available on the website of Association of Mutual Funds in India show.
Assets under Management of the country's largest fund house Reliance MF came down by about Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) to Rs 77,210.03 crore (Rs 772.10 billion) by the end of the first month of the year from Rs 80,779 crore (Rs 807.79 billion
) till December 2007.
"The 20 per cent fall in the stock market, drove the shrinking of mutual funds assets for the period. However, the money invested in new fund offerings, not reflected in the AUM data, could be substantial for the period," mutual fund tracking firm Value Research CEO Dhirendra Kumar said.
However, the second largest fund house in the country ICICI Prudential saw a rise of Rs 7,272.49 crore (Rs 72.72 billion) in its assets, which stood at Rs 64,045.07 crore (Rs 640.45 billion) for January this year. In December, ICICI Prudential's AUM were Rs 56,772.58 crore (Rs 567.72 billion).
State-run UTI MF also witnessed a fall of over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) in its assets under management, which stood at Rs 52,656.19 crore (Rs 526.56 billion) at the end of January, compared to Rs 56,854.10 crore (Rs 568.54 billion) in last month of the previous year.