Flipkart co-founder’s Navi set for 10 passive mutual fund offerings

Navi Mutual Fund, which is part of Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s financial services group Navi, has filed to launch ten new passive funds, as per documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

These would top up the maiden offering, Navi Nifty 50 Index Fund, which launched a new fund offering (NFO) in July. This is one of the cheapest index funds in the market.

The new funds for which the company has filed applications are Navi Nifty Next 50 Fund, Nifty Midcap 150 Index Fund, Nifty Smallcap Index 250 Fund, Navi Nifty 100 ESG Index Fund, Navi Nifty Bank Index Fund, Navi Nifty Commodities Index Fund, Navi Nifty IT Index Fund and Navi Nifty Pharma Index Fund. It has also filed for two US-focussed vehicles—Navi NASDAQ 100 Fund of Fund and Navi Total US Stock Market Fund of Fund.

All these are passive funds that trace the movement of an existing underlying index and does not involve a separate fund manager making investment calls. As a result, such funds are offered with negligible fee structures.

The international funds will give local investors an exposure to existing funds of global passive investments fund giant Vanguard. Interestingly, Vanguard had invested in Flipkart much before the Indian ecommerce major was acquired by Walmart three years ago. 

Bansal had co-founded Flipkart and is its former CEO. He sold his stake in Flipkart after Walmart bought the company. He is now building a neo-financial services empire and has struck a string of deals, including the acquisition of Essel Mutual Fund earlier this year.

In July 2021, Navi MF had launched the Navi Nifty 50 Index Fund, which became the cheapest index fund in the mutual fund industry.

To be sure, Navi is not the only new player in town. A bunch of others are looking to enter the fund management business lured by the monetary liquidity in the country.

These include NBFCs such as Bajaj Finserv, discount broker Samco Securities, mutual fund distributor NJ India and a bunch of portfolio management services firms such as Capitalmind, Helios, Alchemy and Unifi. Another player is White Oak Capital Management, which had acquired YES Mutual Fund a year ago.