Abakkus enters mutual funds with flexi-cap NFO, says focus on basics, flexibility and fundamentals is its edge

Abakkus AMC has entered India’s Rs 80-lakh-crore mutual fund industry with its first product — a flexi-cap fund launching on December 8 — marking the return of market veteran Sunil Singhania to the retail investor segment after seven years.

Singhania, who built his reputation during a long stint at Reliance Mutual Fund (now Nippon India MF), brings a track record of more than two decades of benchmark-beating performance. After exiting the mutual fund world in 2017, he founded Abakkus Asset Manager in 2018 and scaled it into a Rs 40,000-crore PMS–AIF powerhouse.

With SEBI granting Abakkus its mutual fund licence in August 2025, the firm is now expanding beyond alternatives to tap the rapidly growing retail market. The mutual fund business will be led by Vaiibhav Chugh as CEO. Chugh was previously Director and Head of Sales at WhiteOak AMC. Sanjay Doshi is SVP-Investment and Research.

The first product is the Abakkus Flexi Cap Fund, which aims to generate long-term capital appreciation for investors by investing across the market capitalisation spectrum. It will allocate upwards of 65% of its assets in Equity and Equity Related Instruments, up to 35% of its capital in Debt & Money Market Instruments, and up to 10% in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs). The performance of the scheme will be benchmarked against BSE 500 Index (TRI).

While the flexi cap space is growing, the management team is hoping to differentiate from existing funds. “Today in the market most of the fund houses have a flexicap which has a large cap bias. If you look at particularly current market. The breadth of the market. Is not in sync with the market. So that probably gives you a much better opportunity to look at flexicap in the right way,” explained Doshi.

Philosophy, focus and plans ahead

Talking about Abakkus’ philosophy, Singhania explained,  that they believe that “Basics give consistent returns. Boring creates wealth.” Very interesting companies are fun but may not create wealth. Boring companies often do.” He explained that the name Abakkus is inspired by the first instrument children are given to learn how to count. When I was in nursery, I had a slate with beads for counting—that’s the genesis. Abakkus is basics, grassroots. The “K-U-S” is the names of family members. The squirrel is our symbol—agile, flexible, balanced, active, and keeps accumulating. Those are qualities we want at Abakkus.”

As of now, the mutual fund team has around 32 members, which includes research and other functions. “The research function is common at the group level, with a total research team of about 25 people who also support the mutual fund business. Within the mutual fund team, there are 4 dedicated members. Sanjay Doshi is the portfolio manager, and we have one research analyst. Over time, this will become a 5–6 member core team for the mutual fund. As the business grows, we plan to add more fund managers, but the research function will continue to remain a shared resource across the group,” Chugh explained. While the newly appointed team will manage to day to day, Singhania will be associated with the MF as a board member.

Singhania noted that the AMC will continue to follow the priniciples and investing style associated with Abakkus including the in-house investment framework ‘MEETS’, to evaluate key drivers of long-term value creation. The framework focuses on Management pedigree and track record, Earnings quality and the ability of companies to multiply profits, Events/Trends that affect or disrupt operations, Timing of investment at reasonable pricing and Structural aspects like size of the opportunity and competitive positioning while the fund’s investment process will comprise of five ‘Ds’ – Discovery of opportunities, Delving into companies, Developing a comprehensive micro and macro-level view, ‘Detailing’ the investment thesis and ‘Delivering’ a thoughtfully constructed portfolio backed by disciplined execution.

Going ahead, Abakkus MF, is hoping to launch funds across all core segment in the next 6-7 months and are open to exploring SIFs, when the “time is right”.

Abakkus’s alternatives performance has been strong: its Multicap Growth AIF Fund I has grown 2.78x since July 2018 versus 1.47x for the benchmark, while its small-cap Emerging Opportunities AIF Fund I has risen 4.4x compared with 1.4x for the benchmark. Its PMS products too have delivered consistent alpha across three- and five-year periods.

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