The fund is unlikely to attract dividend strippers in a major way, since the fund has book closure till March 29. This leaves short-term investors only two days to exit the fund and book a short-term capital loss and adjust the same against short-term gains, if any. Besides, with markets extremely volatile, short-term investors may suffer an actual loss if the net asset value drops sharply.

BAF is the second fund in the last few days to declare a 80 per cent dividend. The tax planner from Kothari Pioneer, KP Taxshield had announced a 80 per cent payout last month. The fund has kept the record date on March 31, 2000. However, unlike a normal equity fund, there is no threat of dividend stripping in Kothari Pioneer Taxshield since being an equity-linked savings scheme, the fund entails a lock-in of three years. The fund has a current NAV of Rs 35.77. Based on the current NAV, an investor will be allotted 280 units on an investment of Rs 10,000. At Rs 8 per unit, the dividend income is Rs 2236. Besides, an investor will save Rs 2,000 from his total tax liability. This brings down his net investment to Rs 5763. In other words, an investor gets an immediate return of Rs 4237 on an investment of Rs 10,000 or a yield of 42.37 per cent!

SBIMF declares dividend, bonus in two funds
SBI Mutual Fund has announced a dividend of 22 per cent and a bonus issue of one unit for every two units in its Magnum Equity Fund. The record date for the dividend and bonus is March 15, 2000. Including the dividend of 8 per cent declared in June, 1999, the total dividend in the scheme is 30 per cent. Based on the current NAV of Rs 54.12, the dividend yield in the scheme works out to 4.06 per cent. Magnum Equity Fund is among the top performing equity funds in the market. It has given an annualised return of 275 per cent for the latest one-year period.

SBI Mutual Fund has also declared a dividend of 30 per cent and a bonus of 1:2 in its Magnum Balanced Fund. The record date is March 17, 2000. At the latest available NAV of Rs 47.27 the dividend yield will be 6.3 per cent. Magnum Balanced Fund also also given an annualised return of 249 per cent over a one-year period.

Both the equity fund and the balanced fund will have a short-term exit-cum-switchover load of 2.5 per cent applicable for investors entering the scheme after March 1 and before the record dates.

SBI Mutual Fund has assets under management of over Rs 5,500 crore in its domestic and offshore schemes.

20 per cent on UGS 10000
The Unit Trust of India has declared a dividend of 20 per cent in the UGS 10000 scheme, with March 21 as the record date. The scheme, floated in May 1998, is an interval fund and remains open for sale and repurchase for eight days a month. The scheme is open till March 13. The NAV as on February 23 was Rs 18.07. The fund has invested 36 per cent in software and media stocks and 23 per cent in consumer goods, 11.4 per cent in pharma, 6.8 per cent in engineering and six per cent in banking and finance.