International gains revive appetite for global mutual fund schemes

After several years of continuous redemptions, international mutual fund schemes are back in demand as they have significantly outperformed Indian markets.
Over the 12 months up to May, offshore schemes run by Indian asset managers saw net inflows of ₹7,600 crore, a sharp turnaround from net outflows of ₹1,676 crore in the previous year.
According to B Gopkumar, managing director and chief executive officer of Axis AMC, this renewed interest is largely driven by investors following recent performance. He noted that many overseas markets have delivered strong returns while Indian equities have been comparatively muted, and the limited AI-related investment avenues in India may be pushing investors towards global products.
This pickup in flows has come alongside a stark gap in returns between international and domestic funds. On average, international schemes have generated about 40 per cent over one year, with Nippon India Taiwan Equity Fund delivering an exceptional 185 per cent. Over the same period, the BSE 500 index has been broadly flat.
Despite this, most international schemes remain shut to fresh money because the overall overseas investment limit for mutual funds has been fully used. Only about 10 out of 52 such schemes are currently accepting investments, and even these are restricted to systematic investment plans (SIPs). Some of them have also introduced upper limits on monthly SIP amounts.
Advisers and distributors say the wide performance gap has reinforced the argument for spreading investments across geographies, and they continue to advocate allocating a slice of client portfolios to international funds.
Vishal Dhawan, founder and chief executive officer of Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors, said international funds still form part of the core portfolio allocation so that investors are not confined to a single country. He cautioned, however, that decisions on global exposure should be driven by valuations rather than recent returns.
Echoing this, Niharika Tripathi, head of products and research at Wealthy.in, said that geographic diversification is vital because it offers access to global companies and sectors that are not adequately represented in India and helps lower the risk of concentrating investments in one market. She added that the steady inflows over the past year show that investors are increasingly viewing global funds as a long-term diversification tool instead of just a short-term return play.
At the same time, the mutual fund channel for overseas investing is under pressure, as the $7 billion overall international investment cap for MFs has not been raised since it was fully utilised in 2022. Some fund houses have started using the GIFT City platform to offer global products to retail investors, but these typically require relatively high minimum investment amounts.
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