ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund has taken a significant step into India’s nascent Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) category, filing draft documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to introduce two innovative long-short investment strategies. The filings mark the asset manager’s push into a more advanced investment segment designed for sophisticated and high-net-worth investors seeking differentiated risk-adjusted returns beyond traditional mutual funds.

Key Highlights

• ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund enters SIF space, filing for innovative equity and hybrid long-short strategies.
• New funds target sophisticated investors seeking risk-adjusted returns using long-short investment approaches.

Under the proposed framework, ICICI Prudential plans to launch the iSIF Equity Ex-Top 100 Long-Short Fund, which will primarily target stocks outside India’s top 100 companies by market capitalisation. This strategy will invest predominantly in mid-cap and small-cap equities while also using derivatives to take limited short positions, aiming to capture opportunities in less-covered market segments and manage downside risk.

In addition, the fund house has filed for the iSIF Hybrid Long-Short Fund, which will blend equity and debt exposures with a similar long-short investment approach. This hybrid strategy is intended to allow dynamic asset allocation between equities and fixed-income securities, with selective derivative use to enhance returns or protect against market volatility.

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The SIF framework, introduced by SEBI earlier this year, permits mutual fund houses to offer products that sit between conventional mutual funds and alternative investment funds (AIFs), with a higher minimum investment threshold—typically ₹10 lakh per PAN—reflecting the sophisticated nature of these strategies.

If approved by SEBI, these launches will broaden ICICI Prudential’s investment offerings and provide investors with more tools to navigate various market conditions. The move also highlights growing interest among fund houses in long-short strategies, which aim to deliver better risk-adjusted returns by combining long positions in selected securities with tactical short exposures.