Mumbai, Dec 2: Axis Mutual Fund is hopeful of nearly doubling the assets under management and crossing the Rs 2 lakh crore-mark by March.

The fund house, which currently manages over Rs 1.68 lakh crore assets, most of which is from equity-linked funds, launched a new special situations fund on Wednesday from which it is aiming to draw in Rs 1,300-1,500 crore, Axis AMC managing director & chief executive Chandresh Kumar Nigam said.

The new fund is an open-ended equity scheme that follows a special situations theme focusing on investing in disruptive growth opportunities by investing across both domestic and global markets as well as across the market cap spectrum.

The overseas investments will be advised by Schroder, which owns 25 per cent in the AMC, he said, adding they are also targeting to get at least 50,000 retail investors into this scheme.

“Due to the massive sell-off, induced by the pandemic, we closed FY20 with a heavy decline in the AUM at around Rs 1.16 lakh crore. But since then we have recovered, growing by around 65 per cent to Rs 1.68 lakh crore as of October. And if this run rate is maintained, which is more likely, we are sure to cross the Rs 2 lakh-crore-AUM-mark by March,” Nigam told PTI.

Growth is significant as it comes on the back of a steep decline in fund flows into equity schemes, which contributes a little over 50 per cent of Axis' AUM, with the rest under the fixed income schemes.

The AMC has been growing steadily through the year. Its AUM rose to Rs 1.30 lakh crore in April despite the lockdown, which further grew to Rs 1.34 lakh crore in May, and Rs 1.41 lakh crore in June.

July saw the single biggest spike in AUM to Rs 1.54 lakh crore, and touched Rs 1.68 lakh crore in October, clipping at over 40 per cent year-on-year, while the industry managed just about 6 per cent growth, he said.

“We will continue to record industry-leading growth as all our products are doing very well. We haven't disappointed our investors so far and one of the main reasons for this is that Axis AMC does not offer sector funds,” he said, adding the AMC is also winning the confidence of all stakeholders.

Being the seventh largest AMC, it has around 70 lakh folios, of which over 50 lakh are retail folios or investors. The fund house is adding 1.5-2 lakh retail investors every month.

With around Rs 90,000 crore in equity AUM, the fund house controls around 10 per cent of this segment of the industry, while its market share in fixed income schemes is around 6 per cent, which was just about 2 per cent two years ago.

On whether the heavy reliance on equities and fixed income funds as well as retail investors is safe, he answered in the affirmative saying though he would like to see the reliance on institutional inflows to go up a little more.