Motilal Oswal AMC halts lump sum investments in 3 international funds

Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company will not accept lump sum investments and switch-in of money into three of its international mutual funds - Motilal Oswal S&P 500 Index Fund, Motilal Oswal Nasdaq Fund of Fund (FoF) and Motilal Oswal MSCI EAFE Top 100 Select Index Fund - beginning Monday.

However, investors can still make fresh investments through systematic investment plans or systematic transfer plans.

"The aforesaid suspension is temporary in nature and will continue only till further enhancement of limit by regulators in this regard," the AMC said in a notice to investors.


The fund house has taken this step as its international investments are believed to have reached close to the market regulator's overall $1 billion investment limit in foreign stocks.

The investment limit in foreign stocks for a fund house was $600 million till June last year, when it was increased to $1 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has a cap of $7 billion on the mutual fund industry's investment in overseas stocks.

Motilal Oswal S&P 500 is the only fund offering for Indian investors to mimic the performance of the S&P 500 index. For Nasdaq 100, investors have options from Kotak, ICICI and Aditya Birla.

The Nasdaq 100 fund and the S&P 500 fund have been among the best performing international funds over the last one year, returning 21.25% and 24.01%, respectively.