Mutual funds lost over 1.3 mn accounts in April-July: SEBI

Mutual funds in India lost more than 1.3 million individual accounts year-on-year in the first four months of the current financial year, mainly due to profit booking and various merger schemes.

The number of individual investor portfolios with 44 fund houses in the country stood at 41.5 million at the end of July 2013, down from 42.8 million at end July in the previous financial year (April 2012-March 2013), data released by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India  showed.

The sharp fall in portfolio numbers of individual investors could be attributed to profit-booking and various merger schemes in the mutual fund industry, among others, according to market sources.

One investor can have multiple folio numbers and these could get consolidated through merger schemes, they point out.

In fact, the number of folios in equity schemes had fallen by over 1.4 million in April-July 2013-14 to 31.7 million at end-June from 33.1 million at end-March 2013, SEBI data showed.

The decline in equity folios has been has been in line with a 2.5 per cent decline in the BSE benchmark index Sensex.

The total number of folios in debt funds, however, rose by about 2.20 lakh to 6.4 million at the end of July 2013 while the number of folios of exchange traded funds increased by over 2,960 to 7.42 lakh accounts at the end of July 2013, according to SEBI data.

The number of folios of balanced schemes, which invest in the equity and debt category, was down 88,665 at 2.5 million at end-July 2013.

As on 31 July, the total number of schemes offered by the mutual fund industry stood at 1,172, which included 345 equity schemes and 739 debt-linked schemes, SEBI noted.

Mutual funds lost more than 3.6 lakh investors in 2012-13 as the industry continued to register loss of folios for the fourth consecutive year.