As a life insurance company, we know that our customers trust their monies with us for the long term. And they hope to use these funds to protect and achieve the dreams and aspirations of their families. With this in mind, our investment focus is to ensure the long-term safety, stability and profitability of our customer's funds. We aim to achieve superior returns for a given level of risk. To meet this objective, we have developed an investment framework that is based on a sound investment process coupled with a rigorous and sophisticated risk management strategy.

To ensure that we maintain a strict discipline in managing policyholder's funds, we have clearly articulated benchmarks for various unit linked funds. In addition, we also have strict deviation limits vis-à-vis benchmarks that ensure that we do not take undue exposure in any particular sector or stock. We endeavour to give better returns than the benchmark to policyholders for all the funds that we manage.

In summary, our investment process is a function of extensive research and is based on data and reasoning, backed by superior risk control measures. This, we believe, would enable us to deliver to our customers safety, stability and returns on their investments with us.

Assets held at February 29, 2024   In ₹ Billion  
Equity          47%           1,356.90
Debt          53%           1,550.65
Total        100%           2,907.55
     
Asset held by:    
     
Linked policy holders          56%           1,638.98
Other than Linked policy holders          44%           1,268.57
Total         100%           2,907.55

Investment process

Our investment management process relies on analytics and research to achieve positive risk-adjusted returns in each product category, be it for child plans, retirement solutions or other endowment-related funds. We clearly define an asset allocation strategy that matches the risk characteristics of the corresponding liability. Or simply put, we ensure to meet our promise to the customer.

The investment decision-making process has three tiers, each of which has varying degrees of discretion and detailed research to decide the best portfolio composition. The emphasis is to segregate the decision to buy a scrip from the process of actually buying it and thereby institutionalise decision-making.

The average industry experience of the fund manager is 16 years in various aspects of the market, like research, portfolio management, trading, risk management etc. The top management teams at ICICI Bank and Prudential Corporation Asia ably guide the investment team in making the strategic asset allocation and continuously monitor the performance of the investment team.

Investment decisions

Debt investments target a mix of government and corporate bonds. The investment process is backed by intense research and analysis and comprises qualitative as well as quantitative measures. We take calls after carefully studying all the factors that influence interest rate direction, such as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) policy and stance, inflation, growth of money supply, credit off-take, fiscal deficit, global interest rate scenario, and market sentiment. Detailed research reports obtained from credit rating agencies form the primary basis for investment decisions. Also, the team's assessment of the economic cycle, industry health, its perception of management quality and the demand and supply situation in stock of a particular entity influence the investment decision.

The investments in equity are targeted at long-term capital appreciation. We are not bound by traditional pure value or growth-driven strategy and continuously look where both co-exist. Portfolio diversification lies at the core of our investment strategy. We have an articulated benchmark for each of our funds and have well-defined deviation limits vis-a-vis the benchmark at both sector and stock levels. We combine a top-down and bottom-up approach while choosing stocks for our investment, considering several factors like management quality, performance track record (of the sector), dividend track record, transparency in disclosures, execution capabilities, etc. Our equity portfolio has a large-cap bias, as we believe that they offer higher risk-adjusted returns. However, we do invest in mid-caps provided they satisfy at least one of the following criteria presence in a high-growth industry, one of the industry segment leaders, niche player, offers a play on outsourcing opportunity or structural turnaround in performance. Thus the focus is on ensuring consistent, stable and better risk-adjusted performance over the long term for our policyholders.

COMP/DOC/Feb/2024/122/5424
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