5 Oldest Mutual Funds in India – Launched 30+ years Back (12% to 17% Returns)

UTI Master Share fund was the first mutual fund in India that was launched in October, 1984. However, the mutual fund industry went into several phases before they became popular in India. Do you know that there are a dozen mutual fund schemes that are nearing or over 30 years of age ? In this article, we would talk about 5 oldest mutual funds in India  that was launched over 30 years back and their performance in short term, medium term and long term.

How we filtered oldest mutual funds in India?

We have taken source data from Valueresearch and Moneycontrol to filter this data. Since the time frame is over 10 years and direct plans were not existing, only regular plans in mutual funds were considered.

Considered mutual funds that has an age of 30+ years. We have exactly 5 mutual funds that has 30 years 2 months to 36 years 6 months age. Means these mutual funds were launched before Apr-1993.

5 Oldest Mutual Funds in India - Launched 30+ years Back (12 to 17 Returns)

List of 5 Oldest Mutual Funds in India – Launched over 30 years back

#1 – UTI Mastershare Fund – Launched 36 years and 6 months back

#2 – SBI Magnum Equity ESG Fund –  – Launched 32 years and 4 months back

#3 – UTI Flexicap Fund – Launched 30 years and 11 months back

#4 – UTI Core Equity Fund – Launched 30 years and 2 months back

#5 – SBI Large and Midcap Fund – Launched 30 years and 2 months back

5 Oldest Mutual Funds in India Launched 30 years back – Detailed View

Now lets get into more detailed view about these funds, where does it invest and how did they perform in medium to long term.

#1 – UTI Mastershare Fund

This is a largecap mutual fund.

The scheme seeks to generate long term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of large cap companies.

This is the first mutual fund in India that was launched on 18-Oct-1986.

This fund has generated 17% annualised returns since launch.

This mutual fund currently invests 89% in largecap stocks and 10% in midcap small stocks and 1% in smallcap stocks. Investing in some of the good largecap mutual funds always rewarded investors with consistent returns.

Its expense ratio for direct plans is 0.95% and regular plans is 1.71%.

This fund has consistently generated 12% to 12.7% SIP returns in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years.

Here is the annualised returns and SIP returns of the fund. Since direct plans came only 10 years back, all these details provided are pertaining to regular plans.

UTI Mastershare  Fund 3Y 5Y 10Y 15Y 20Y Inception
Annualised Returns 21% 10% 13% 13% 13% 17%
SIP Returns 10% 12% 12% 12% 13% NA

#2 – SBI Magnum Equity ESG Fund

This is a thematic fund that follows ESG theme.

Objective of the scheme is to provide investors with opportunities for long-term growth in capital through an active management of investments in a diversified basket of companies following Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria.

This is the 2nd oldest mutual fund in India that was launched on 1-Jan-1991. The original fund name was SBI Magnum Equity Fund and renamed to SBI Magnum Equity ESG Fund later on.

This fund has generated 14.6% annualised returns since inception.

This mutual fund currently invests 82% in largecap stocks and 18% in midcap small stocks and balance in smallcap stocks.

Its expense ratio for direct plans is 1.34% and regular plans is 1.96%.

This fund has consistently generated 12% to 14% SIP returns in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years (regular plans). We did recommended this fund several times in our Best Thematic Mutual Funds article earlier.

Here is the annualised returns and SIP returns of the fund (regular plans).

SBI Magnum Eqt ESG  3Y 5Y 10Y 15Y 20Y Inception
Annualised Returns 21% 11% 13% 13% 13% 15%
SIP Returns 11% 12% 12% 12% 14% NA

#3 – UTI Flexicap Fund

This is a flexicap mutual fund.

The primary objective of the scheme is to generate long term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of companies in a flexible manner across the market capitalization spectrum.

This is the 3rd mutual fund in India that was launched on 18-May-1992. The fund was renamed from multicap to flexicap based on SEBI guidelines couple of years back.

This fund has generated 12.3% annualised returns since launch.

This mutual fund currently invests 68% in largecap stocks, 29% in midcap small stocks and balance in smallcap stocks.

Its expense ratio for direct plans is 0.89% and regular plans is 1.6%.

This fund is consistently generating 11% to 14% SIP returns in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years (regular plans). This is always in our Top Flexicap Mutual Funds recommendation list every year which we keep posting on our blog.

Here is the annualised returns and SIP returns of the fund.

UTI Flexi Cap  Fund 3Y 5Y 10Y 15Y 20Y Inception
Annualised Returns 20% 10% 14% 14% 14% 12%
SIP Returns 6% 11% 12% 13% 14% NA

#4 – UTI Core Equity Fund

This is a large and midcap mutual fund.

The scheme seeks to generate long term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of large cap and mid cap companies.

This is the 4th oldest mutual fund in India that was launched on 16-Feb-1993. The fund was renamed from multicap to flexicap based on SEBI guidelines couple of years back.

This fund has generated 12.3% annualised returns since launch.

This mutual fund currently invests 50% in largecap stocks, 45% in midcap small stocks and balance in smallcap stocks.

Its expense ratio for direct plans is 1.65% and regular plans is 2.17%.

This fund is consistently generating 12% to 15% SIP returns in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years (regular plans).

Here is the annualised returns and SIP returns of the fund.

UTI Core Equity Fund 3Y 5Y 10Y 15Y 20Y Inception
Annualised Returns 29% 10% 13% 13% 13% 13%
SIP Returns 17% 15% 13% 12% 12% NA

#5 – SBI Large and Midcap Fund

Even this is a large and midcap mutual fund. The scheme seeks to provide the investor with the opportunity of long-term capital appreciation by investing in diversified portfolio comprising predominantly large cap and mid cap companies.

This is the 5th mutual fund in India that was launched on 28-Feb-1993.

This fund has generated 14.5% annualised returns since inception.

This mutual fund currently invests 40% in largecap stocks, 42% in midcap small stocks and balance in smallcap stocks.

Its expense ratio for direct plans is 0.99% and regular plans is 1.79%.

This fund is consistently generating 15% to 17% SIP returns in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years (regular plans).

Here is the annualised returns and SIP returns of the fund.

SBI Large & Midcap Fund 3Y 5Y 10Y 15Y 20Y Inception
Annualised Returns 29% 13% 17% 17% 17% 15%
SIP Returns 19% 17% 15% 15% 17% NA

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Suresh KP

5 comments

  1. I think that you have left out funds from hdfc & Franklin Templeton. I am an investor with these funds since their inception i.e kothari pioneer & Zurich mutual fund. Still holding their funds though occassionally booking profits

    1. The funds what I indicated are the oldest among them > 30 years. Pls see first fund of Franklin and HDFC below (pre-merger)
      Franklin India Bluechip fund – 29 years 5 months
      HDFC capital builder fund – 29 years 3 months

      1. Oh ! Out of the 5funds mentioned in your report i am still holding uti master share & sbi Magnum equity fund . Besides these above funds both Franklin & Zurich mutual fund (now hdfc mutual fund) schemes gave me fanstatic multi fold returns !

  2. We all know that UTI was a master mis-manager of so called mutual fund operations in India as we have seen the role and clout of UTI in Harshad Mehta scam.
    And therefore, we must exclude UTI from our analysis and list. It would be better if we take those schemes existing for 20 years or so, because by that time, mutual fund industry in India had seen entry of all private sector players, apart from existing public sector mf players, like SBI, etc. And 20 years is a sufficient time to analyze the performance also.

    1. Kamalji, The list is based on the age of the mutual funds and how well they have been performing from inception. Yes UTI had issues earlier but over a decade, all these arrested to some extent with SEBI guidelines. Yes one can always need to check before investing.

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