Mumbai, June 8: Chola Mutual Fund, which manages assets of Rs 1,150 crore, has decided to launch two schemes every quarter as part of a strategy to carve out a larger slice of the industry pie. Chief executive Sashi Krishnan told The Telegraph the Chola Midcap Plus Fund and Chola Income Plus Fund have already been approved by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

The blueprint of two more plans, tentatively named Chola Floating Rate Fund and Chola Dynamic Asset Allocation Fund, will soon be sent to the market regulator.

A part of the Rs 5,200-crore Murugappa group, the company has long wanted to ramp up its presence in the mutual fund industry. Having new schemes floated frequently is just one way of doing that. “We will launch at least two funds every quarter,” he said.

The decision to go in for a launch-flurry comes at a time when the Murugappas are trying to position themselves as a fully integrated financial services group.

“We, more or less, have our organisational structure in place,” Krishnan said, referring to the way the group set up a securities brokerage firm and a general insurance firm in the past few years. It has taken big strides in distribution of financial products too.

Last year alone, Krishnan says the group has mobilised funds amounting to Rs 1,600 crore. Chola MF has 16 offices, spread across key cities in the country. The firm manages assets worth Rs 1,150 crore, the bulk of it brought by Chola Liquid Fund.

Krishnan concedes his company will have to reach semi-urban and rural areas if it wants to achieve its goal of increasing its presence in the industry. At present, most mutual funds are focused on metros. “The key lies in how we penetrate other markets.”

Talking of investment, Krishnan said this is the right time to enter stock markets and stay put for four to five years.

He said the firm would soon decide when to float the Chola Income Plus Fund and Chola Midcap Fund. The former is an open-ended income scheme that aims to generate income by investing in a range of debt, money market, equity and related instruments. The Chola Midcap Fund is an open-ended equity scheme whose objective is to achieve capital appreciation by investing primarily in mid-cap stocks.

It will pick companies whose market capitalisation is between Rs 300 crore and Rs 2000 crore.