NEW DELHI, May 2: Escorts Mutual Fund has recorded a return of 16 per cent (on annualised basis) on its income bond scheme for the period ended March 31, 1997. A final dividend of 6.50 per cent will be paid to unit holders under the dividend option of the scheme. The record date has been fixed at June 2.

Escorts Asset Management Ltd's director Jayant Dang said that the net asset value (NAV) of the scheme as on March 31, 1997 stood at Rs 10.91, under both the dividend and growth options. This signified a growth in assets of nearly 22 per cent.

Escorts Income Bonds, a close ended income scheme with a corpus of Rs 20.95 crore commenced on October 31, 1996 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange. The scheme has invested its entire corpus in a well diversified and risk moderated portfolio of fixed income securities, Dang said.

Dang said that the the mutual fund will shortly come out with an open ended income scheme. The details were being worked out. Dang said that the existing scheme's corpus had been consciously kept awar from equity shares and equity related instruments keeping in mind the present state of the market and investor sentiment. The entire portfolio of the scheme had been disclosed.

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