Indian Equity Funds hold 2.5 Lakh Crore’s in cash, Waiting for Right Time

#equityfundsholdcrores

Mumbai: A New Study report by Motilal Oswal Financial Services shows that the Indian mutual fund industry has cash holding of 7% of the total equity AUM. The data shows that the average cash holding of the top 20 fund houses was 6.9% of the total equity AUM in March 2025. The average cash holding of these fund houses increased from 4.9% of the total equity AUM in March 2024.

PPFAS MF, Motilal Oswal MF and SBI MF are the top three fund houses in terms of cash holding in percentage terms. PPFAS MF has the highest cash holding of 21.9% of its total assets in the MF industry. Of the total equity assets of Rs.68,900 crore, the fund house held cash component of Rs.15,000 crore.

Motilal Oswal MF has the second highest cash holding at 17.8% whereas SBI MF is next with 10.4% of its MF assets in cash.

Quant MF and Axis MF also have high cash holdings of 10.3% and 9.3%, respectively.

Other fund houses with over 6% cash holdings include Bandhan MF, ICICI Pru MF, HDFC MF, DSP MF and Sundaram MF.

Here are the details of the top 20 fund houses and their cash holdings as on March 2025:

Further, Bandhan MF and Invesco MF saw substantial changes in their cash holdings level in the last one year.

The cash holding of Bandhan MF reduced from 15.2% in FY24 to 7.5% in FY25. Invesco MF’s cash holding also reduced to 2.7% in FY25 from 8.5% in FY24.

In addition, HDFC MF reduced their cash holding across equity funds last financial year

On the other hand, PPFAS MF increased its cash holding from 5.5% in FY24 to 21.9% in FY25.

Motilal Oswal also increased its cash holdings from 2.6% to 17.8% in one year. Axis MF raised its cash holding from 4.5% to 9.3% in the corresponding period.

SBI MF and ICICI Prudential MF too increased their cash holdings last financial year.