ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company has stopped fresh inflows into its Passive Multi-Asset Fund of Funds as it does not fit to any of the fund classification prescribed by the market regulator SEBI
The ICICI Pru Multi-asset FoF invests in domestic equity and debt, overseas equity and gold. However, SEBI mandates that a multi-asset FoF cannot mix overseas and domestic investment together.
In a notice to the investors, the fund house said the Multi-Asset FoF with its existing asset allocation and investment objective, could not be classified under any of the categories specified under SEBI framework.
Following this, the scheme will not accept subscription through lumpsum or SIP / STP from January 27. Existing SIP and STP for investing in the scheme will stand discontinued from February 5.
However, redemption and switch-outs from the scheme will continue. The scheme will be grandfathered for three year from January 27 and will be merged or wound up after 3 years.
Sunil Subramaniam, CEO of independent think tank Sense and Simplicity said SEBI introduced a categorization framework for FoFs, requiring schemes to fit specific buckets such as domestic equity, debt or overseas funds.
The regulator does not want an investor interested in domestic assets to be exposed to foreign investments in the name multi asset FoF, he said.
ICICI Pru AMC’s Passive Multi-Asset FoF’s allocation includes 71 per cent in domestic equity/debt ETFs, 25.5 per cent overseas ETFs, plus gold and this does not align with any category specified by SEBI, he added.
As part of grandfathering, the AMC will now maintain the fund as it is without accepting fresh inflows for the next three years, said Subramaniam.
The ICICI Prudential Passive Multi-Asset Fund of Funds has asset under management of ₹1,415 crore and delivered a compounded annual growth of 15 per cent in last 3 years.
The fund is managed directly by ICICI Pru AMC’s CIO Sankaran Naren and ace fund managers Manish Banthia, Dharmesh Kakkad, Ritesh Lunawat among others.
Early this month, Motilal Oswal AMC paused fresh inflows into the Motilal Oswal Nifty Microcap 250 Index Fund as it did not fit into SEBI’s categorisation norms which recognises large (top 100 companies by way of market-cap), mid (101-250 companies) and small (251 onwards). However, there is no separate categorisation for micro-caps.
Launched in July 2023, Motilal Oswal’s fund tracked the Nifty Microcap 250 index, which represents 250 companies outside the Nifty 500 universe. Since inception, the scheme has delivered cumulative returns of about 22 per cent and has AUM of ₹2,600 crore.
Published on January 25, 2026
