The fund is available with a three per cent load and the fund's disclosure, like other Kothari Pioneer funds, is the best in the domestic fund industry.

Ravi Mehrotra is the chief investment officer at Kothari Pioneer. K N Siva Subramaniam manages Prima Fund. He also manages Bluechip, Taxshield '96 and the GIP, a closed-end income fund. He was previously with IDBI.

The first open-end equity fund, Prima has a chequered history. Among the first funds to cash in on the 1993-95 IPO boom, the fund appreciated by over 100 per cent within a year of launch. Like most IPO funds, the fund was saddled with small cap illiquid IPO stocks as the boom went bustand the fund flirted away all its gains.

Today, almost five years since launch, the fund struggles to guard the capital of its original investors - though there would be very few left. Following its non performance, the unit capital of Prima has declined from a peak of Rs 176 crore in March, 1995 to Rs 12.61 crore today.

In 1997-98, like the other KP equity funds, Prima was restructured. Most of its small cap holdings was dis-invested and today, the fund has a negligible presence in the segment. The present portfolio strategy has been to identify industries with bright prospects and buy the best companies in the sector.Infotech, FMCG, Pharma, Finance and Petrochem are currently the fund managers' favourite. The fund is being actively managed and has been a superior performer in a range bound market.

The fund had shown signs of recovery before the present market meltdown. Based on the present portfolio focus on Infotech and FMCG, the fund should stay ahead of the market averages in next six to twelvemonths.

Though the fund outlook has improved, the fund manager's tendency to get into fads is disturbing. The fund manager of Prima has seldom followed the stated portfolio strategy. Moreover, the present portfolio strategy looks no different from the other KP open-end equity funds, though the objectives are different. An aggressive growth fund, Prima competes with Bluechip and Prima Plus for investor's attention.