Friday, August 26 2005 19:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: SBI Mutual Fund is focusing on smaller towns as a matter of strategy and would continue to strengthen its distribution network in the coming years, its Managing Director and CEO P G R Prasad said today (Aug 26, 2005).

Presently, SBI Mutual Fund had an investor base of over 10 lakhs spread over 16 schemes and a network of over 35 collection branches, 26 investor service centres, 19 investor service desks and 21 district organisers, he told reporters in Bangalore.

Assets Under Management of over Rs 8,000 crore spread over 16 schemes are now being managed by SBI Mutual Fund, Prasad said.

He said with Foreign Institutional Investors' interest on the rise in the Indian capital market and impressive performance by corporates in both mid and small caps, SBI Mutual Fund was keen to identify the 'up trends in a systematic way'.

Talking about the Magnum Multicap Fund, an open ended growth scheme which opened for subscription on August 22 and would close on September 16, he said the fund would invest a minimum of 50 per cent of its equity/equity related instruments in large cap stocks and the balance 50 per cent would be divided between mid cap and small caps with a provision to invest at least 10 per cent in mid cap stocks.