An old-timer which has outpaced its category by small margins in 15 of the last 16 years, the fund invests mainly in the top 125 stocks by market capitalisation. It has typically owned 85-90 per cent in large caps, with a marginal allocation to mid-cap stocks. Earnings growth and capital efficiency are the main stock filters and growth at a reasonable price (GARP) is the key style employed by the fund. The fund is particular about buying companies that do not frequently knock at the doors of investors for capital. Consistency of returns has earned it a 3-4 star rating over much of the last decade, rather than big margins of outperformance against the category.

After being a top-quartile performer until 2008, the fund has been in the second quartile in most recent years. This is not a fund that generates tearaway returns in bull markets. But it has managed to keep ahead of the market and also contain losses very well during bear markets. The fund divides its portfolio between core holdings, which are quality stocks, and tactical holdings, which may offer value while meeting basic quality checks. It looks for businesses which are scalable, have high entry barriers and make good capital-allocation decisions. Traditionally a fund which keeps just ahead of the benchmark and category, it has beaten its benchmark by 9.5 percentage points in the last one year. This year the fund has owned a mix of cyclical and secular growth stocks, with positions in cement, capital goods, and autos and auto ancillaries apart from pharma stocks.

Overall, it manages predictable but middle-of-the-road returns.