Saving for retirement should be an essential part of your financial planning. For this, many investors park their money in retirement funds hoping that the corpus accumulated would take care of their expenses later in the face of no income during old age. However, do all retirement funds avail their customers of similar returns? A look at the historical returns of some popular retirement funds reveals
| Name of the fund | One-year returns | Three-year returns | Five-year returns |
| ICICI Prudential Retirement Fund - Pure Equity Plan - Direct Plan-Growth | 27.66% | 44.08% | 18.46% |
| HDFC Retirement Savings Fund - Equity Plan - Direct Plan-Growth | 16.15% | 42.80% | 19.51% |
| ICICI Prudential Retirement Fund - Hybrid Aggressive Plan - Direct Plan-Growth | 10.84% | 29.16% | 13.37% |
| HDFC Retirement Savings Fund - Hybrid- Equity Plan - Direct Plan-Growth | 7.12% | 28.66% | 13.90% |
Fund composition
The three-year average returns earned on investing in ICICI Prudential Retirement Fund - Pure Equity Plan - Direct Plan-Growth are higher than the category average. A holistic look at the fund and its average returns over five years reveal its portfolio being locked in 87.42 per cent equity fund holdings.
This fund invests in 28 stocks of which 70.55 per cent of the money is parked in large-cap investments, 7.15 per cent in mid-cap investments, and 1.31 per cent in small-cap investments with the remaining invested in other financial instruments.
The idea behind investing in this fund is to generate capital appreciation from a portfolio locked in equities and equity-related investment instruments. Currently, this fund holds ₹157.41 worth of assets under management and is benchmarked against NIFTY 50 - TRI as the primary index and NIFTY 500 - TRI as the secondary index. Since its inception, investors have earned 69.40 per cent returns from the money put in this fund.
The fund charges an expense ratio of 1.04 per cent, which is slightly higher than other funds in the same category. The fund has an inherent moderate risk factor, thus, prompting many risk-averse investors to choose it to fund their retirement needs.
Estimating possible returns
Assuming that an investor aged 40-years-old makes a SIP investment of ₹10,000 in this fund for 20 years.
The total invested amount: ₹24,00,000
Estimated returns on the amount invested: ₹2,26,90,520
Total value of the investment after 20 years: ₹2,50,90,520
The taxability factor
Since it is a retirement fund, any contribution up to ₹1.5 lakh every year towards retirement mutual funds is subject to tax exemption under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. This means that the amount invested is deducted from the total taxable income to derive a net income that is now lower and would attract less tax imposition.
Disclaimer: This is not an investment advice. Please speak to your SEBI-registered investment advisor before investing.
