ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund: Fund review

Remaining invested with schemes that have a focused approach in selecting large-sized companies is one way to deal with the heightened volatility in markets. A key reason for this approach is that large-sized companies that have a long operational history have experienced differing demand and market cycles, which are better placed to contain the downside for investors.

Among the large-cap schemes, ICICI Prudential Bluechip focuses on bluechip companies. Launched in 2008, the scheme suits well for conservative investors who have reasonable expectations in returns. Besides consistency in its performance, the scheme is known to protect the downside in bear cycles over the past 10 years. This is largely due to keen focus on quality companies. In the past three-year and five-year periods, the scheme has given 10% and 15% returns while its benchmark index Nifty 100 TRI has given 10% and 13.7% returns.

In the past six months, the scheme’s fund managers Priyanka Khandelwal, Rajat Chandak and Anish Tawakley have enhanced exposure in large-cap stocks across sectors which have reasonably good visibility of revenues and turned attractive in the recent fall in markets. A few prominent stocks in the scheme are: HDFC, Vedanta, and SBI Life Insurance.

Portfolio change (past six months)

New entrants	Complete exits	Increase in allocation
Bharti Infratel	Yes Bank	Vodafone Idea
Mangalore Refining & Petro	IndusInd Bank	HDFC, Bharti Airtel
SBI Life Insurance		TVS Motor Company
Titan Company

Returns (in %)

Period	CAGR Return	SIP CAGR Return	Diversified largecap AVG CAGR
1-year	0.54	-7.56	-1.55
3-Year	10.80	10.00	8.19
5-Year	14.87	11.34	14.10

Returns peer comparison (in %)

Scheme name	1-year	3-year	5-year
ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund	1.06	10.63	14.92
Axis Bluechip Fund	4.75	10.23	14.35
Invesco Largecap Fund	0.73	8.25	14.22