The two schemes - Sundaram Growth Fund and Sundaram Tax Saver - from Sundaram Mutual Fund have outperformed the average fall in NAVs of diversified equity funds during the period from January 1 to October 31 of this year.

However, its balanced scheme, Sundaram Balanced Fund, has under performed industry average fall of 4 per cent (from January 1 to October 31) in NAVs of all balanced funds in the industry. The balanced scheme hit the market (in May 2000) when software stocks were still commanding high valuations.

This proved to be a bane for the fund as software stocks recorded sharp losses in a couple of months after its launch.

Nevertheless, the fund has been in existence since June this year, which is too short a period to judge its performance. Considering all this, Sundaram Balanced Fund has, more or less, withstood the sharp fall in IT stocks. From August 1 to October 31, the balanced fund's net asset value (NAV) has fallen by 5.42 per cent against the average fall of 4 per cent in NAVs of all balanced funds.

Sundaram's growth fund and tax saver schemes are standing on a firm footing. During the 10-month period, Sundaram Growth Fund's NAV has fallen by 24.29 per cent against the industry average of a negative 28 per cent (based on 64 diversified equity schemes). The tax saver scheme has outperformed the industry average fall of 28 per cent by a wide margin. Sundaram Tax Saver's NAV has declined by 20.89 per cent.

According to the latest portfolio as on September 20, 2000, the growth fund's exposure to IT is as high as 26.81 per cent of its net assets and no other sector enjoys such a high exposure. When compared with IT, the fund's exposure to other sectors like auto, healthcare, consumer, finance, petrochemicals and transport is in a range of 3.19 per cent to 10.09 per cent. The portfolio has an array of software stocks. The top holding of the fund is Infosys Technology (4.48 per cent of net assets of Rs 22.94 crore) followed by SSI (4.2 per cent).

Mastek (3.92 per cent), Satyam Computers ((3.6 per cent), HCL Technologies (2.76 per cent), Moser Baer (2.69 per cent), NIIT (2.1 per cent), PSI Data Systems (1.78 per cent), Wipro (1.74 per cent), Pentamedia Graphics (1.48 per cent), Ramco Systems (1.14 per cent) and Polaris Software (1.12 per cent) are other IT stocks figure in the portfolio. The fund has also invested in non-IT stocks like MTNL, VSNL and Zee.

Sundaram Balanced Fund's exposure (as on September 30) to IT is 16.26 per cent of its net assets, which is also very high considering that it is a balanced fund. Its investment in other sectors like consumer, healthcare, finance and auto is in a range of 3.48 per cent to 7.18 per cent. Its exposure to debt is 44 per cent and equity 52 per cent. Infosys (3.99 per cent of net assets of Rs 20.35 crore) is again the top holding of the fund and other stocks like Moser Baer (2.14 per cent), Satyam Computers (2.03 per cent), SSI (1.9 per cent), Mastek (1.72), HCL Tech (1.53), Digital (1.42), Hughes Software (1.41), NIIT (1.12), Polaris Software (0.92) and Wipro (0.26) are other holdings.

Sundarma Tax Saver has 27.39 per cent exposure to IT. Infosys Tech is again the top holding of the fund with a weightage of 4.69 per cent of the total net assets of Rs 3.14 crore, followed by SSI (3.84 per cent). Of the top 10 holdings, there are seven IT stocks. The other IT stocks are Satyam, Mastek, HCL Tech, Moser Baer, NIIT, Digital Equip, Wipro, Pentamedia, PSI Data Systems, Polaris Soft and Ramco Systems.