"India Excel Fund has the tenth best performance among two thousand mutual funds in Canada according to Pal Track," president and chief executive officer of the fund, Bhim D Asdhir, said here today. India Excel Fund, started on April 15, last year by Excel Funds Management Inc has appreciated almost thirty five per cent during the past one year, Asdhir told PTI, adding at one stage it had gone up to forty five per cent.

He said: "the fund in its first year has done extremely well. We hope that it will be one of the best performing mutual funds in Canada and India." Attributing the fast growth of the fund to Birla Capital's investment in software, pharma and consumer product sector, Asdhir said, ``Birla Capital has done aphenomenal job of investing in some of the best companies in these sector which performed well due to good demand and increased foreign investment."

This was the reason for Birla Global being the largest private sector mutual fund company in India and its being rated the best, he said. Referring to fund's investment strategy, Asdhir said that strong emphasis had been placed on companies which have high quality, visionary corporate management, fundamentally good values and sustainable growth prospects.

He said Birla Capital (Indian investment advisor) had constructed a portfolio of "blue chip" companies that were largely unaffected by the political and economic uncertainty in India. This was the reason for Excel India Fund having grown by about thirty five per cent in just one year.

Ten per cent of the fund's total assets had been invested in Canadian securities with a focus on Canadian companies doing business with India. This had helped to improve the liquidity of the fund as well as support Canadianbusiness in India, Asdhir said.

He said the fund had an excellent structure whereby investors were not subject to foreign withholding taxes on capital gains, and could also invest in Indian companies that had reached their foreign investment limits.

He said the name of the Birla Capital International Amc Ltd., owned by Aditya Birla group, would be changed to Birla and Sun Life Amc Ltd, with effect from middle of next month.

Asdhir said that the Aditya Birla group, had identified Sun Life Assurance company of Canada (Sun Life) for an across-the-board relationship in financial services in India.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Sun Life and Aditya Birla group provides for the establishment of joint ventures in a broad range of financial services, including asset management and the establishment of a dedicate distribution system.

Sun Life and the Aditya Birla group would also participate in the life insurance business when regulations permit participation by private companies, Asdhiradded. Sun Life which commenced business in 1871, is a diversified global financial services company with total assets worth 220 billion Canadian dollars under its management and a surplus of 5.8 billion Canadian dollar.

With mutual fund assets of 116 billion Canadian dollar, Sun Life has the largest global fund business of any Canadian-based financial services company and its subsidiary in the US Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS), is the oldest and one of the most respected mutual fund companies in North America.

Sun Life, with more than 10,000 employees and more than 65,000 agents and distributors, offers insurance, mutual funds pension and other financial services in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Bermuda.