Edelweiss launches India's first passive index fund for healthcare sector with MSCI

Mumbai: Edelweiss Asset Management on Monday announced a partnership with MSCI to launch the country's first passive thematic index fund which will bet on 45 healthcare companies from India and abroad. The company feels that healthcare as a category has under-performed over the last two years during which it has seen issues like difficulties in getting US FDA licenses, and will do better in the future due to which the offering has been launched through a tie-up with MSCI.

Radhika Gupta, the chief executive of Edelweiss AMC, told reporters that the fund will invest 70 per cent of its corpus in 25 top local companies and the remaining 30 per cent in global ones listed in the US.

It is a passive fund and the investment decisions will not be done by humans at all, she said, adding that this is first in a series of collaborations between Edelweiss and MSCI.

"Given the rise in lifestyle diseases and the uptick in spending to treat them, the healthcare sector is primed to grow steadily over the next decade," she said.

Apart from growing demand, export opportunities and a conducive policy environment are also a growth driver for the sector, she added.

The new fund offering for the 'Edelweiss MSCI India Domestic & World Healthcare 45 Index Fund' will open on Tuesday and close on October 20.