According to officials at the two AMCs, draft prospectus have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and an approval was awaited. ``We will launch the fund as soon as we receive the Sebi nod,'' said Nikhil Khatau, chief executive officer, Sun F&C. ``We will keep the fund open for initial subscription for a very short duration,'' he added.Christened Money Value Fund, the scheme from Sun F&C offers two options - a liquid option and a bond option. The AMC has set a minimum subscription target of Rs 1 crore.

The bond option will provide investments under dividend and growth plans. While the liquid option will target high networth individuals and corporates for short-term money, the latter will targetprimarily investments at long-term GoI securities and corporate papers. The liquid option, being a short-term fund, will route the moolah to the money market.

``Technically speaking, it is not an umbrella fund since it gives two different investment options. An umbrella fund has to offer two or more funds under it,'' said a fund manager. So far, Chola Freedom from Cholamandalam Cazenove is the only umbrella fund in the country.

``It is an innovative product by Sun F&C since the AMC has bifurcated the debt segment by launching a single fund,'' said a fund analyst. The trend for launching a short-term liquid fund has caught the fancy of AMCs in the last one year with Birla AMC being the first to veer around the 30-day (now 15-day) lock-in in MMMFs. A number of AMCs like Birla, JM, Reliance, Templeton and Alliance had to launch a separate quasi-money market mutual fund since these AMCs were already managing a debt fund. Open-end debt and liquid funds are currently numbered at 21 with all the short-term debtfunds launched in the past one year.

The Money Value Fund facilitates lateral shift between two options at net asset value. The management fee for the fund will be in line with the market. Private sector AMCs normally charge a management fee of 1 to 1.25 per cent.

Although divided on the magnitude of the rise in interest rates, debt market experts are of the opinion that the time is just ripe to launch a debt fund. ``This would help funds pick up securities at a relatively cheaper price,'' said a secondary debt market dealer. Meanwhile, the equity fund from Sun F&C has not seen any major inflows despite bringing down the load from 6 per cent to nil on April 23 this year. The current corpus of the fund is Rs 4 crore. ``We had anticipated the volatility in the market and hence did not market the fund aggressively,'' said Khatau. Currently, the AMC also manages an overseas fund - India Performance Fund, which has a corpus of $25 million. The fund is listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange and has a NAV of $100.The units for the scheme were offered for $100.

In the case of MMIS '98 (II) from SBIMF, the scheme will be launched in July. Although the coupon is yet to be decided, sources at the AMC indicated that it will be higher than the coupon offered in MMIS '98 since interest rates are expected to firm up. MMIS '98 had offered 12.5 per cent for the monthly option, 12.64 for the quarterly and 13.24 for the yearly option.