Review: SBI Magnum Contra Fund

Let us today discuss about the Review of SBI Magnum Contra Fund. I am here discussing this fund because this is my all time favourite fund. The fund has a proven past record of good performance. In my MF Portfolio, This is the Core Fund.

Overview -

SBI Magnum Contra fund is a Large cap oriented fund which invests both in Growth & Value stocks. This fund is launched since last more than 10 years in Indian Market so it has a very long track record of good performance.

And this fund has consistently beaten the underlying benchmark Index since last more than 10 years.

Top 10 Sectors -

Here are the Top 10 Sectors in which the fund manager of this fund has invested investors’ Corpus.

- Energy
- Financial
- Engineering
- Communication
- Construction
- FMCG
- Diversified
- Metals
- Technology
- Automobile

Top 10 Holdings -

- Reliance Industries
- ICICI Bank
- SBI
- Bharti Airtel
- ONGC
- Infosys Technologies
- ITC
- Crompton Greaves
- HPCL
- BHEL

Fund Manager -

Pankaj Gupta has joined this fund since May 2007. Mr. Gupta is a Commerce Graduate
and MBA from IIM, Luchnow. Has over 4 yrs. of experience in Mutual Fund, Equity Research and
Corporate Banking. He had his previous assignment with ICICI Bank Ltd.

Fund Details -

Over the past eight years, Magnum Contra has consistently managed to stay ahead of the curve. An amazing feat when you take into account its investment objective. In its initial years, its contrarian sector moves and concentrated stock allocations made it an awfully bold choice. Its brash allocation to metals and auto in the year 2000, is a case in point. In 2001, when other diversified
equity funds were bullish on FMCG, this fund avoided these sectoral
stocks.

It stayed underweight on healthcare but remained bullish on auto. However, somewhere down the road, it has transformed into a diversified equity offering. It tends to stick more with consensus sectors. Recently in 2009, in line with other equity diversified funds, it moved up
the exposure to financial services sector and was benefited as the BSE Bankex index turned into one of the best-performing indices in the recent rally (09/03/2009 to 30/06/2009).

Apart from this, the fund manager reduced the cash and debt exposure from 27.12 per cent in February 2009 to 10.68 per cent in June 2009. All these moves paid off as the fund delivered 72.23 per cent over this period, close to the category's 71 per cent.

Buy or Not Buy? -

Honestly Speaking, This Fund should be the Core Fund of anyone’s Portfolio.