NFO Alert: WhiteOak Capital Mutual Fund launches ESG Best-In-Class Strategy Fund

WhiteOak Capital Mutual Fund has launched WhiteOak Capital ESG Best-in-class Strategy Fund, an open-ended equity scheme investing in companies following environment, social and governance (ESG) themes, adopting the best-in-class strategy.

The new fund offer or NFO is open for subscription and will close on October 25.

The fund seeks to invest in companies with superior corporate governance practices. The fund seeks to derive returns for its clients by investing in high-quality businesses, which have long-term sustainability of return on capital, potential scalability of the business, strong execution capability and superior corporate governance culture, according to a release by the fund house.

“In DCF (Discounted Cash Flow) models, typically more than 80% of the value comes from the terminal value. Projecting growth into the future and assigning significant exit growth rates, multiples, and terminal value all assume sustainability and longevity of businesses, which one suspects can't come at the cost of damaging the environment, disregarding societal imperatives, and short-changing minority shareholders. Poor ESG practices pose a risk to business longevity and hence reduce terminal value,” said Aashish Somaiyaa, CEO of WhiteOak Capital Asset Management.

“The fund will utilise its proprietary framework to assess companies on their corporate governance practices. Under this framework, companies are prominently assessed based on their accounting practices, alignment with minority shareholders’ interests, capital allocation, board strength and compliance with the relevant laws and regulations,” said Ramesh Mantri, CIO of WhiteOak Capital Asset Management.

The fund will be managed by Ramesh Mantri, Trupti Agarwal, Dheeresh Pathak, and Piyush Baranwal. It is suitable for investors seeking long-term capital appreciation with focus on ESG-related investment instruments. The scheme will be benchmarked against Nifty 100 ESG TRI.

For lumpsum purchases, the minimum investment amount is Rs 500 and in multiples of Re 1 thereafter. For SIP purchases, the minimum investment is Rs 100 for weekly, fortnightly and monthly frequency. Similarly, Rs 500 is for quarterly SIP (and in multiples of Re 1 thereafter). The minimum weekly, fortnightly, monthly SIP installments are six and for quarterly it is four.

In respect of each purchase / switch-in of units, an exit load of 1.00% is payable if units are redeemed/ switched-out within one month from the date of allotment. No exit load is payable if units are redeemed / switched-out after one month from the date of allotment.

The scheme will allocate 80-100% in equity and equity-related instruments of companies following environment, social and government (ESG) theme adopting Best-In-Class Strategy, 0-20% in equity and equity-related Instruments of other companies, 0-20% in debt securities and money market instruments, and 0-10% in units issued by REITs and InvITs.