LIC Mutual Fund has set its sights on clocking ₹50,000 crore in assets under management by March 31, 2025.

“As of March 31, 2024, our AUM was ₹27,733 crore. It has increased to ₹36,171 crore as of November 30, 2024. Our plan is that by March 31, 2025, we should cross ₹50,000 crore of AUM,” Ravi Kumar Jha, managing director and CEO, LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management Ltd, said on Friday.

Jha said the company is eyeing an expansion both on the distribution and product side, while lowering the SIP amounts to garner more interest in SIP investment from beyond top 30 cities, which accounted for around 18 per cent of the industry’s assets under management as of October 2024.

“Our parent (LIC) is very strong as regards its agency force. So I have asked my sales team to put maximum focus on MFDs (mutual fund distributors). Our share of business was around 65 per cent from MFDs. LIC agents also form part of MFDs. We have grown this to more than 85 per cent. Our aim will be to try to take it as close to 90 per cent,” Jha said.

“We have also drawn a plan that by March 31, 2025, we should have a minimum of 50 branches,” he said.

“We have introduced pocket SIPs. Daily SIP can now be done with a small amount of ₹100 (from earlier ₹300). We have reduced our ticket size in monthly SIP to ₹200 in most of our schemes. The quarterly SIPs have been brought down to ₹1,000,” Jha said.

The mutual fund is also looking at expanding its portfolio with more funds in the pipeline.

Amid market volatility, Jha said that retail investors should focus on plain vanilla products such as diversified equity funds and value mutual funds (which invest in stocks that are thought to be undervalued) for long term generation of wealth.

LIC Mutual Fund is also seeing a growing investor interest in its funds from Bengal. As of November 30, 2024, LIC Mutual Fund’s AUM in the state was ₹2,700 crore.

Bengal is among the top five states that together contribute 70 per cent of the country’s mutual fund assets under management, the other four being Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and New Delhi.