LIC Nomura MF Mid-Cap Fund  (Open ended)NFO launch. The NFO period starts from 2^nd Feb,2015 and closes on 16^th Feb,2015.

It has been our consistent endeavor to offer a mix of products to the investors and to suit their investment needs at the appropriate times, this year we started with the RGESS Series-3 and now the Mid-Cap launch and over the year we will be launching products to suit retirement needs also a thematic fund in order to take the advantage of opportunities offered by the economy.

Over the last few months there has been a significant positive change in LIC NOMURA AMC in the process of getting aligned to the industry practices and building a distribution based business model, however one the important development has been the turn-around in our existing equity oriented schemes performances which is supported by through research backed investment processes. The new equity investment team has been on board from Dec,2012 and since then we have seen a remarkable improvement in the schemes performances.

Brief about the Equity investment team at LIC Nomura AMC:

It is a 5 member team headed by Mr. Nobutaka Kitajima – CIO Equity, Mr. Sachin Relekar- Fund Manager to the scheme, Mr. Ramnath V-Fund Manager and they are supported by two analysts. The collective work experience is over 60 years.

The equity investment team adopts a three step  investment process:

·         Research (cover stocks in BSE-200)

·         Portfolio Construct (Company potential)

·         Evaluation and Risk Monitoring (Investment process review)

Equtiy investment management track record - Mr Sachin Relekar-Fund Manager LIC Nomura MF Mid-Cap Fund.

Mr. Sachin Relekar is BE (Mechanical) Shivaji University-Kolhapur and post graduate(MMS-Finance) from JBIMS-Mumbai. He has around 14 years of work experience on the investment side, prior to joining LIC Nomura he was with TATA AMC for 5 years and  has joined LIC Nomura MF in late 2012.

Mr. Sachin Relekar manages the following schemes at LIC Nomura MF

·         LIC Nomura MF Growth Fund ( since joining the firm)

·         LIC Nomura MF Infrastructure Fund (since joining the firm)

·         LIC Nomura MF ULISS Fund (Since April-2014)

·         LIC Nomura Capital Protection Oriented Fund series 1 to 5

  LIC Nomura Mid-Cap Fund- Investment opportunity

Mid companies tend to show stronger growth in the phases where economic growth is strong. In these period mid cap stocks tend to outperform market. We expect Indian economy to undergo cyclical recovery, led by softening interest rates. Recovery will be also aided by structural reforms, expected to be undertaken by strong government at center. Several state government also taking reformist steps.

On the timing, we believe there is long way to go for overall opportunity in the equity markets and it holds true for mid cap companies as well. Strong fundamentals of economy will keep throwing up interesting businesses to invest into. It is a great opportunity to take exposure through a well diversified fund and have longer term investment horizon.

Fund will be managed with bottom-up stock selection approach. We will be selecting stocks with specific parameters wherein growth, quality, valuation, momentum and volatility aspects of the stocks will given weight age. It will not tilt towards any specific theme. At the same time it is aimed at capturing essence of growth at reasonable valuation of India's fundamental story.

Why LIC Nomura Mid-Cap Fund

o   Strong investment track record of above 24 months

o   Well experienced investment managers

o   Strong brand

o   Disciplined investment process (as defined above)

o   Well diversified portfolio

o   Proper weighting of stock selection factors - growth, quality, valuation, momentum and volatility

o   Periodic rebalancing – to align the portfolio with above factors

o    Aim to deliver strong alpha with minimum risk

It will be a diversified portfolio of around 80 stocks, the team follows a bottom stock picking approach(process already defined earlier) and it will not be biased to any sector, however being a mid-cap it will have lesser exposure to banking and financial services sector as compared to our other large-cap biased equity schemes.