LIC MF Value Fund: A good fund for volatile markets

LIC Mutual Fund has recently re-introduced four of their flagship schemes - LIC MF Focused Fund, LIC MF Value Fund, LIC MF Small Cap Fund, LIC MF Dividend Yield Fund. These four schemes along with recently launched, LIC MF Multi Asset Allocation Fund, are funds in focus in current market dynamics. We covered LIC MF Focused Fund, in the previous article of this series. In this article, we will review LIC MF Value Fund, which may be a suitable investment option for long term investors in current market conditions.

What is Value Investing?

Fund managers who follow the value investing style try to identify stocks which are trading at significant discounts to their intrinsic value. The intrinsic value of a stock is based on fundamental analysis based on several factors like the company's competitive strengths, market share, industry growth potential, company's revenue growth prospects, margins, leverage etc. During usual course, a stock may trade at a price higher or lower than the intrinsic value. Stocks which are trading at significant discounts to intrinsic value provide margin of safety because the downside risk is somewhat limited.

Why invest in value funds?

• Value investing can bring more consistency in your portfolio performance: Historical data shows that value strategy has outperformed the broad market across different market cycles. The chart below shows the calendar year returns on Nifty 500 Value 50 TRI (50 stocks chosen from the Nifty 500 universe based on value scores) versus the broad market, Nifty 500 TRI. You can see that the value index outperformed the broad market index, 7 times in the last 10 years.
  
  

  

  Source: National Stock Exchange, Advisorkhoj, as on 25^th June 2025 Returns shown are absolute returns



• Value investing outperformed the broad market over long investment tenures: The chart below shows the 1, 3, 5 and 10 year returns of the value index (Nifty 500 Value 50 TRI) versus the broad market index (Nifty 500 TRI). You can see that the value index outperformed the broad market over long investment tenures.
  
  

  

  Source: National Stock Exchange, Advisorkhoj, as on 25^th June 2025. Returns are CAGR

About LIC MF Value Fund

LIC MF Value Fund was launched in August 2018. The name of the scheme was changed after IDBI Mutual Fund merged with LIC Mutual Fund last year. Nikhil Rungta and Mahesh Bendre are managing this scheme from 1^st July 2024. The fund managers attempt to identify fundamentally strong companies, ones with robust balance sheets, steady cash flows, and sound business models, that are currently trading below their intrinsic value due to short-term volatility, contrarian sentiment, or cyclical dislocation.

Consistent outperformance across different market conditions

The chart below shows the 1 year rolling return of LIC MF Value Fund versus its benchmark index over the last 3 years. The average and median rolling returns of LIC MF Value Fund are higher than the benchmark index. The percentage instances (observations) of 15%+ returns of the fund are also higher than that of the benchmark index.

Source: Advisorkhoj Rolling Returns, as on 25^th June 2025

Investment Strategy

• LIC MF Value Fund predominantly invests in well-diversified portfolio of companies after taking into consideration several factors such as Earning Potential, Asset Value, Cash Flow, Dividend Yield, Company's competitive advantage etc.


• The fund managers study various parameters like the price-to-book (P/B) ratio, price-to-earning (P/E) ratio, dividend yields (D/Y) of companies within the researched fund house universe in order to arrive at potential investment strategies


• The fund managers also look into other quantitative parameters like Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) to identify stocks which may be available at more favourable valuations when compared with peer group and stocks in applicable benchmark.

Current Portfolio Positioning

Source: LIC MF Value Fund as on 31^st May 2025

Wealth creation by SIP

The chart below shows the growth of Rs 10,000 monthly SIP in LIC MF Value Fund since the inception of the scheme. With a cumulative investment of Rs 8.2 lakhs, you could have accumulated a corpus of Rs 14.24 lakhs (as on 25th June 2025). The SIP returns (XIRR) since inception is 15.94%.

Source: Advisorkhoj Research, as on 25^th June 2025

Why invest in LIC MF Value Fund?

• Focus on Fundamentals - Focuses on fundamentally strong companies which are trading at a price lower than their intrinsic value.


• Long Term wealth creation - Scheme helps investors capture the long-term growth potential of undervalued companies.


• Ideal for Value Conscious Long-Term Investors - as the Portfolio comprises of well researched value picks.


• Allows style diversification - Scheme invests across sectors and market capitalisation allowing market cap and sector diversification.

Who should invest in LIC MF Value Fund?

• Investors looking for capital appreciation over long investment horizon


• Investors looking for value-based investing approach for meeting their long-term financial goals


• Investors willing to invest in undervalued business


• Investor looking for diversified investment in fundamentally strong companies across market cap and sectors


• Investors with a very high-risk appetite


• Investors with an investment tenure of over 5 years

Investors should consult their financial advisors or mutual fund distributors if LIC MF Value Fund is suitable for their investment needs.

Lumpsum Performance of regular and direct plan of the fund

SIP Performance of regular and direct plan of the fund

Performance of the other funds managed by Nikhil Rungta and Mahesh Bendre

Source: LIC MF Fund Factsheet (as on 31^st May 2025)