Category: Investing Insight

What are MNC Funds?

MNC funds invest in the Indian listed shares of foreign firms, like Bosch, Britannia and Colgate Palmolive. The funds are bench-marked against the CNX MNC Index.

The MNC index has out-performed pretty much every other market-cap index. We had discussed this previously and had pointed out that the UTI MNC Fund is decent place to get exposure to this asset class.

UTI vs Birla Sun Life

Thankfully, there are only two funds that track this asset class – one is the UTI MNC Fund and the other is the Birla Sun Life MNC Fund. Here’s how their growth schemes compare:

Between 2006-07-03 and 2015-03-19, BSL MNC Fundhas returned a cumulative 478.61% with an IRR of 22.31% vs. UTI MNC Fund’s cumulative return of 427.17% and an IRR of 21.02%. (http://svz.bz/1Exk126)

The difference in performance between the two funds is de minimis when you consider that the period of comparison is almost eight years. The main thing to focus on here is that an IRR of ~22% is extremely hard to achieve in any asset class over that stretch of time.

Active Management

Portfolio trajectories

Both have allowed their winners to run and have different positions that have worked out well for them. Here’s how the Birla Sunlife Fund looks like:

And this is how the UTI Fund looks like:

The View

You will do well to have either fund in your portfolio. But given the narrow focus of these funds, these should complement your portfolio rather than dominate it. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch!

Diversification vs. Returns vs. Currency hedging

Some Indian funds, under the guise of diversification, invest in foreign equities. However, the benefit of diversification comes from investing across asset classes. Does investing in the same asset class, i.e., equities, really give the investor uncorrelated returns? Or are funds using international equities as a rupee-short in disguise?

World Equity Correlation

When you run correlations between the monthly returns of the S&P 500, Nasdaq, FTSE 100, Nikkei and CNX 500, here’s what you get:

A zero or negative correlation would validate the diversification claim. But that is not the case. Indian equities are loosely correlated with international stock markets.

World equity Returns

When it comes to returns, Indian equities have outperformed all the main indices.

Currency hedge

The 50% depreciation in the rupee since 2000, however, make a strong case for adding short-INR/long-USD assets.

Competency

Although Rupee depreciation makes a case for holding dollar assets, why do it in a convoluted way by buying individual stocks? The competency of an Indian asset manager in picking stocks in a foreign market is questionable.

For example, the PPFAS fund holds about 20% of its assets in foreign equities. This, at a time when most developed markets have given up on stock-picking and have turned to indexing instead. Can a manager, sitting in India, select stocks in a foreign market that outperform that market?

The problem with a mixed-in portfolio like PPFAS is that it is very difficult to break performance down to its components. Between 2014-01-01 and 2015-02-25, PPFAS Long Term Value Fund has returned a cumulative 44.20% with an IRR of 37.45% vs. BSE MID CAP’s cumulative return of 58.84% and an IRR of 49.50%. (http://svz.bz/1DZzX1L)

Conclusion

Exposure to US Dollar assets makes sense given the historical depreciation of the Indian rupee against the US dollar. However, we are not convinced that buying a fund that tries to pick stocks in foreign markets is the way to go. Investors would be better of being net short the rupee, or buying the S&P 500 ETF separately.