Gautam Kalia, SVP and Head – Super Investor, Sharekhan By BNP Paribas, says “if a fund is consistently keeping 15-20% in cash, then it is really a cause for concern because you are not really getting your money's worth as far as fund management fees are concerned, your money is not being deployed as you expected it to. Those become red flags for us and should become a red flag for investors also, especially if the fund house finds it difficult to deploy money over a 6-month to 12-month period and stays in cash at elevated levels.”
What is the concept of holding cash that fund managers have?
Typically most mutual funds allow for redemption at any given point of time, even if there are exit load implications and tax implications, you can get your money and you can place a redemption request anytime and get your money in two-three days depending on the category of fund.
So, there is a certain amount of liquidity that has to be maintained at the fund house level, at the scheme level, so that they are able to fulfill such requests. It is like your local bank branch having some cash in hand so that if anyone wants to withdraw some money, they have that cash to give to you. So, typically, this varies between 0% and 5% or in some situations, it may go up to 8-9%. We have seen that in the last few months, some funds are having a higher cash holding.
So, let us talk about the funds that have a higher cash holdings right now. Also what is the strategy these mutual funds are holding right