ICICI Prudential launches new MF

Hyderabad: ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund recently announced the launch of its open-ended equity scheme, ICICI Prudential Pharma, Healthcare & Diagnostics (PHD) Fund. The scheme aims to generate long term appreciation by investing into the entire spectrum of health-related sub sectors.

Mittul Keserwadia, Fund Manager, ICICI Prudential, said, “India has one of the largest youth populations. However, with a senior citizen population of 16 crore together, and with increasing life expectancy the demand for healthcare is expected to increase significantly.”

He further added, rise in income levels, increased health awareness, improvement in treatment technologies and penetration of health insurance has led to healthcare being one of the fastest growing segments in the country. Whereas, India continues to remain an under-penetrated market in terms of healthcare services and insurance. As such, non-discretionary spend coupled with increasing awareness make the theme a structural story for long period of time.

Due to higher growth, the pharma sector has always traded at a premium relative to the market, but the premium has narrowed down significantly in last few years. The recent underperformance of pharma stocks makes a strong case for investing now in this sector, Keserwadia affirmed.