Is ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund Worth Your Capital?

Posted by Dishika Baheti on August 3rd, 2018

Being a top value investing scheme, ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund has been one of the best funds that is offered by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund. The fund is neither too risky, nor too safe. It keeps its portfolio flexible by investing and shuffling the stocks according to the market demands and timings. It has been among the top funds in its category, offering long-term returns to investors. The fund has been detailed research, which has been discussed in the article further as under:

About the Fund:

ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund was launched in the year 2004, having an AUM of Rs 16,130 Cr as on Jun 30, 2018, with an expense ratio of 1.99%. The fund has an average market capitalisation of Rs 91,524.53 Cr as on July 31, 2018. This capital is invested in different market caps, which is 71% in giant companies, 10.97% in large-cap companies, 13.90% in mid-cap, and 3.49% in small-cap companies.

The fund is investing in the 39 companies with a value investing approach, keeping 92% in equity, equity-linked derivatives and the rest in debt instruments. The fund been investing in diversified sectors, keeping the portfolio assorted in energy, technology, financial and banking, healthcare, automobile industry, etc.

The top companies comprise in the portfolio of the fund are Sun Pharmaceuticals Ind., Infosys, Wipro, Mahindra & Mahindra, and NTPC. These top five companies in the fund’s portfolio concentrate 34% of total capital.

Past Performance Analysis:

ICICI Prudential Value Discovery has generated the returns of 21.23% since its launch. The fund follows S&P BSE 500 TRI as its benchmark. However, the fund has been underperforming its benchmark and category average from the last two years. The annualised returns of the fund in the year 2014 was 73.76%, 5.44% in 2015, 4.61% in 2016, and 23.82% in 2017. The highest returns of it were in the year 2009 by 134.32%.

The compounded returns of the fund for the past three, five and seven years were 7.75%, 12.40% and 17.02%, respectively. The three years cumulative returns have underperformed its benchmark and category, but in the five and seven years, it has delivered 2 to 4 percent higher returns. The alpha generated by the fund was also negative on the basis of the past three years returns with -1.43%, as provided on 30 June 2018.

Fund Manager:

The fund has been managed by Mr Mrinal Singh since 2011. He joined the ICICI AMC as a research analyst in 2008 and promoted as a fund manager in 2009. He runs the fund on valuation conscious approach relying on all the market caps. He keeps churning the portfolio of fund trying to keep the best of the ongoing market in the mutual fund. He invests in such stocks that he believes are looked at unfavourably due to weak sentiment and news flow rather than solid fundamental reasons.

He invests in the companies who have attractive growth potential and also have strong financial ratios. This all makes the fund to give higher returns in the long run.

Investors’ Suitability:

ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund growth is suitable for the investors who have an appetite of tolerating a moderately high risk. This is because it significantly invests in the equity and equity-related securities, which is a volatile market.

It is ideal for the people who have an investment horizon of 5 years or more, who wants to achieve the financial goals of wealth creation, increasing the standard of living, etc.

The NAV of ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund G is Rs 147.07 as on July 31, 2018. The fund is accepting the investments through lumpsum and SIP mode, both. The minimum initial investment must be of Rs 1,000. The minimum SIP amount is Rs 500 on a monthly basis.