"'We are also in talks with a few other leading corpoate houses for using their brand names for our funds," PIAMC north zone head Suraj Mishra told newspersons here. Under its existing tieup with HLL, Prudential ICICI would be utilising 70 per cent of the proceeds of the fund to invest in Unilever group companies. Around 20 per cent of the proceeds would be invested in other multinational scrips, while the remainig 10 per cent would be invested in debt.

``This is as part of our efforts to get a lot of small and niche market investors into the mainstream. A normal investor would have to shell out about Rs 3.5 lakh for the same amount of shares which he can now buy for Rs30,000 through this scheme,'' Mishra said. Besides, the company is also looking forward to launching a number of other funds like index funds, derivative funds, pension funds as well as customer service related products.Meanwhile, the company has received a nod from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to roll over and restructure its two old schemes - ICICI Premier and ICICI Power. ICICI Premier, a closed-end fund managed by PIAMC, has been rolled over for a period of five years up to February 2004. The fund, which is due for redemption in February 1999, was initially launched in November 1993 and has a corpus of approximately Rs 110 crore. ICICI power has a corpus of Rs 32 crore.

ICICI Premier, which was launched as an equity fund, would be restructured into a balanced fund with a minimum of 60 per cent of the corpus invested in good quality debt and money market securities. The remaining would be invested only in equity of multinational companies. The rationale for restricting the investment of theequity portion exclusively to MNC stock is based on research conducted by PIAMC, Mishra said.

The research indicates that imultinational companies offer quality business and financial management, a fact that has been recognised by the stock market. This is reflected in the share prices of MNCS. A study on the performance of the MNC universe has shown a 15 per cent annualised return in the last five years. The market, during the same period, gave a negative return of 0.80 per cent. The MNC Index, therefore, outperformed the market by 16 per cent. ``We have designed the product based on the feedback from investors and we feel that the contribution of debt and stock would answer the need of our unit holders.''

Trading in old units of the scheme, Mishra said, was suspended last month. PIAMC is now sending option letters to unit holders requesting them to convey their decision to either roll over their curent holding or redeem the same. If the scheme does not receive unitholders' affirmative response prior tothe closure of the roll-over period, that is December 31, 1998, then as per Sebi regulations, the scheme shall be required to redeem the holdings of units.