Five Mutual fund houses to discontinue 190 schemes

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/five-fund-houses-to-discontinue-190-schemes/1/188758.html

Five mutual funds, including leading players including Reliance and ICICI Prudential MF, on Wednesday listed out a total of 190 schemes that would be discontinued for fresh SIP investments to comply with SEBI guidelines.

The move follows new SEBI regulations, which require fund houses to launch only one plan per scheme with effect from this month.

Consequently, Reliance MF, ICICI Pru, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and IDFC Mutual Funds on Wednesday communicated the required changes in their schemes to the BSE, where many of their schemes are listed for trading.

Together, a total of 190 schemes of these five fund houses would be discontinued for subscription or registration in existing SIPs.

SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) offers the mutual fund investors an option to invest as low as Rs 100 per month and have gained popularity in the market in recent past.

Many fund houses had launched multiple SIP plans under one scheme, prompting market regulator SEBI o ask the fund houses to move to 'single plan per scheme' model in a move to make the investment process simpler for investors.

The five fund houses have also communicated to the BSE a list of 22 schemes where the Minimum Purchase Amount and Additional Purchase Amount have been lowered as per SEBI guidelines.

All the proposed changes would be effective immediately and are part of wide-ranging reforms notified by SEBI recently.