After a rocky start in its initial three years, this fund has really come into its own in the last five years. That is mainly because its quality-oriented strategy has been a big winner in this market phase. This fund has trounced benchmarks and the category by big margins over one, three and five years and earned a five-star rating in the last two years. The fund swears by a BMV (business-management-valuation) framework. It hunts for high-growth companies that meet quality parameters on cash flows, ROE and good governance. The stocks selected are either sector leaders in the mid-cap space or challengers to leaders in large sectors.

After trailing its benchmark from 2007 to 2009, this fund has beaten both benchmark and category every year since 2010, despite a rather difficult-to-call market. This period coincided with a change in the fund manager and the strategy. The fund hasn't witnessed a really severe bear market but managed the 2011 fall quite well. It is quite active in shifting between large-, mid- and small-cap stocks and these calls seem to be a function of the fund's bottom-up choices on individual stocks. In the last one year, it has parked 20-30 per cent in large caps, 40-55 per cent in mid caps and the rest in small caps. The fund size remains maneuverable at less than `500 crore and this may allow the manager to own some mid- and small-cap positions that its behemoth peers may not be able to.

The fund has a quality bias in stock selection, which may not work equally well in all market phases.