SBI Mutual Fund
SBI Mutual Fund is an Indian asset management company , run by SBI Funds Management Limited (SBIFM), a joint venture between the State Bank of India and the French asset manager Amundi , registered with SEBI under the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996, and India’s largest fund house with quarterly average assets under management (QAAUM) of Rs 12,49,970 crore, a 15.4 per cent industry share, for the October to December 2025 quarter (AMFI data cited in the company’s March 2026 DRHP). It has been the largest AMC in India by AUM since 2021.
The fund house traces to 29 June 1987, when the State Bank of India set up SBI Mutual Fund as a trust, making it the first non-UTI mutual fund in India and the first launched by a public sector bank. It received its SEBI registration on 23 December 1993. As of December 2025 it ran 126 mutual fund schemes for 16.05 million unique investors across equity, debt, hybrid, passive, and solution-oriented categories. State Bank of India holds 61.98 per cent of SBIFM and Amundi India Holding holds 36.40 per cent, per the draft red herring prospectus filed with SEBI on 19 March 2026.
SBIFM is also India’s largest passive manager. Its ETF and index fund business held QAAUM of Rs 3.99 lakh crore, a 29.6 per cent market share, as of December 2025, and passive products made up 32 per cent of the firm’s total mutual fund QAAUM in the quarter to December 2025. The SBI Nifty 50 ETF , which carries part of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation equity mandate, held about Rs 2.05 lakh crore as of June 2026, the single largest scheme in the SBIFM book. Among actively managed funds, SBI Blue Chip Fund , SBI Contra Fund , and SBI Small Cap Fund are among the most widely held equity schemes in the country.
This entry covers the fund house’s history from the 1987 launch through the Société Générale and Amundi joint ventures and the 2021 rise to market leadership; its sponsor, trustee, and service-provider structure; the scheme portfolio across passive, equity, debt, hybrid, and solution categories with dated AUM figures; the leadership and investment teams; distribution through the State Bank of India branch network; the March 2026 IPO filing; and how to invest in SBI schemes through direct and platform channels.
History and corporate structure
Origins as the first bank-sponsored fund, 1987 to 1992
SBI Mutual Fund was set up as a trust on 29 June 1987 under the sponsorship of the State Bank of India, then the country’s largest commercial bank by branch network. The launch broke the Unit Trust of India monopoly that had run since 1964, and it did so under a commercial trust structure rather than a parliamentary statute. The early schemes carried the Magnum brand, which became the umbrella product identity for the fund house’s open-ended funds. The first scheme was an income-oriented product, in keeping with the assured-return and income-fund practices of that era, before the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations of 1996 standardised disclosure and ended the assured-return model.
Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, SBI MF launched income and equity schemes that drew on the sponsor’s depositor base. Selling mutual funds across SBI branches gave the fund house a distribution reach no standalone AMC could match at the time, a structural advantage it still holds in smaller towns and cities.
Société Générale joint venture, 1993 to 2010
SBI MF received its SEBI registration on 23 December 1993. In the years that followed, SBI brought in Société Générale Asset Management (SGAM) of France as a minority joint-venture partner. The partnership added international fund-management process and broadened the scheme set. The SGAM stake settled at around 37 per cent and held there for over a decade, establishing the roughly two-thirds SBI, one-third foreign-partner split that survives today.
Amundi joint venture, 2011 to present
Société Générale Asset Management merged with the asset-management arm of Crédit Agricole to form Amundi in 2010. The SGAM stake in SBIFM passed to Amundi, and on 13 April 2011 SBI and Amundi Asset Management signed the agreement that formalised the present joint venture. Amundi, headquartered in Paris and the largest asset manager in Europe, gave SBIFM access to global research, risk-management systems, and emerging-markets capability. As of the March 2026 DRHP, Amundi India Holding held 36.40 per cent of SBIFM.
In 2013 SBIFM acquired the schemes of Daiwa Mutual Fund, the Indian arm of Japan’s Daiwa group, folding a small competitor’s assets into its book. The acquisition was modest in scale but extended SBIFM’s pattern of consolidating smaller AMCs.
EPFO equity mandate, 2015 to present
In 2015 the Government of India directed the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation to invest a share of its incremental corpus in equities through ETFs tracking the Nifty 50 and the Sensex . SBI Mutual Fund and UTI Mutual Fund were named the two managing AMCs, and SBI MF manages the Nifty 50 ETF tranche. EPFO inflows have been one of the largest single drivers of SBIFM’s passive AUM growth, and they explain why the SBI Nifty 50 ETF alone holds about Rs 2.05 lakh crore, larger than any active scheme in the industry.
Rise to market leadership, 2021 onwards
SBI Mutual Fund became the largest Indian AMC by QAAUM in 2021, overtaking HDFC Mutual Fund and ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund . Growth since then has come from three sources at once: institutional and EPFO flows into the passive book, a wide retail SIP base fed by the branch network, and the post-2020 surge in first-time mutual fund investors. By the quarter to December 2025 the QAAUM stood at Rs 12,49,970 crore and the unique investor count at 16.05 million, with passive products at 32 per cent of total QAAUM.
IPO filing, March 2026
SBI Funds Management filed a draft red herring prospectus with SEBI on 19 March 2026. The proposed issue is structured entirely as an offer for sale of up to 20.37 crore equity shares, about 10 per cent of paid-up capital, with no fresh issue, so the company itself raises no money. State Bank of India plans to sell up to 12.83 crore shares (about 6.3 per cent) and Amundi India Holding about 7.53 crore shares (about 3.7 per cent). Both retain majority positions after the sale, with SBI remaining the dominant promoter. A listing on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange would make SBIFM the fourth listed AMC in India, after HDFC Asset Management , Nippon Life India Asset Management , and UTI Asset Management .
Sponsor, trustee, and service providers
The sponsor of SBI Mutual Fund is the State Bank of India, the Government of India-controlled commercial bank headquartered in Mumbai. The trustee is SBI Mutual Fund Trustee Company Private Limited, a wholly owned SBI subsidiary that holds the schemes’ assets in trust for unitholders and supervises the AMC under the mutual fund trust structure prescribed by the SEBI Mutual Funds Regulations 1996 . The AMC entity, SBI Funds Management Limited, has its registered office in Mumbai, and its board carries directors nominated by both SBI and Amundi alongside independent directors required under SEBI’s governance norms for AMCs.
The principal service providers are:
- Registrar and Transfer Agent: Computer Age Management Services (CAMS), which processes investor transactions through its online and branch network. Investors can service folios through CAMS Online and the industry utility MF Central .
- Custodian: SBI-SG Global Securities Services, a custody joint venture of SBI, provides settlement and safekeeping; designated sub-custodians hold specific overseas securities.
- Depositories: Demat-held units sit at NSDL and CDSL .
- Statutory auditor: appointed annually by the trustee board.
Scheme portfolio
SBI Mutual Fund ran 126 schemes as of December 2025 across the SEBI scheme categories. The table below lists flagship schemes with AUM dated to June 2026 from scheme factsheet data, ordered by size.
| Scheme | Category | AUM (June 2026) | Fund manager |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBI Nifty 50 ETF | Passive (large-cap ETF) | Rs 2,05,278 crore | Passive team |
| SBI Blue Chip Fund (SBI Large Cap Fund) | Large cap | Rs 53,527 crore | Saurabh Pant |
| SBI Contra Fund | Contra / value | Rs 47,263 crore | Dinesh Balachandran |
| SBI Small Cap Fund | Small cap | Rs 37,395 crore | R. Srinivasan |
| SBI Magnum Mid Cap Fund | Mid cap | Disclosed in factsheet | Equity team |
| SBI Flexicap Fund | Flexi cap | Disclosed in factsheet | Equity team |
| SBI Focused Equity Fund | Focused | Disclosed in factsheet | R. Srinivasan |
| SBI Long Term Equity Fund | ELSS | Disclosed in factsheet | Equity team |
| SBI Equity Hybrid Fund | Aggressive hybrid | Disclosed in factsheet | Equity and debt teams |
| SBI Balanced Advantage Fund | Dynamic asset allocation | Disclosed in factsheet | Multi-asset team |
Passive schemes
The passive book is the dominant share of SBIFM’s AUM, with QAAUM of Rs 3.99 lakh crore and a 29.6 per cent market share in ETFs and index funds as of December 2025. The largest scheme is the SBI Nifty 50 ETF, which holds the EPFO Nifty 50 mandate and carries about Rs 2.05 lakh crore as of June 2026 at a total expense ratio of 0.04 per cent. The SBI Sensex ETF tracks the S&P BSE Sensex and also receives EPFO allocations. Beyond the index-tracking core, SBIFM runs the SBI Nifty Next 50 ETF, SBI Nifty Bank ETF, and SBI Gold ETF as thematic passive products. For investors who prefer the fund route over the exchange route, the SBI Nifty 50 Index Fund , SBI Nifty 500 Index Fund, and SBI BSE 400 MidSmallCap Index Fund give open-ended access. SBIFM’s scale in passive products reflects the broader passive investing wave in India .
Equity schemes
The active equity range spans every market-capitalisation segment:
- SBI Blue Chip Fund, renamed SBI Large Cap Fund, launched in February 2006, is the flagship large-cap scheme at about Rs 53,527 crore as of June 2026, one of the most widely distributed equity funds in the country.
- SBI Contra Fund, launched in July 1999, runs a contrarian-value strategy and held about Rs 47,263 crore as of June 2026 under Dinesh Balachandran , after a stretch of category-leading performance in the 2020s.
- SBI Small Cap Fund, managed by R. Srinivasan , held about Rs 37,395 crore as of June 2026 and has periodically restricted lump-sum inflows to manage liquidity at scale; it stopped accepting fresh lump-sum subscriptions in September 2020 during one such restriction.
- SBI Magnum Mid Cap Fund, SBI Flexicap Fund, SBI Focused Equity Fund, and SBI Multicap Fund cover the mid-cap, flexi-cap, focused, and multi-cap mandates.
- SBI Long Term Equity Fund, an ELSS scheme, is among the original tax-saving funds in India and offers a Section 80C deduction with a three-year lock-in.
Debt schemes
SBI MF runs a full debt range covering overnight, liquid, ultra-short, short-duration, corporate bond, banking and PSU, dynamic bond, medium-to-long duration, and gilt categories. The debt book skews institutional: corporate and PSU treasury desks contribute large balances to the liquid and short-duration funds, where the NAV -based daily redemption and the safety of the SBI name matter to cash managers.
Hybrid and solution-oriented schemes
The hybrid range includes SBI Equity Hybrid Fund, formerly SBI Magnum Balanced Fund and one of the older balanced funds in India, and SBI Balanced Advantage Fund, which shifts its equity-debt mix with market valuation. The solution-oriented set includes SBI Retirement Benefit Fund, available in aggressive, conservative, and other variants for goal-linked investing.
Assets under management trajectory
SBIFM’s QAAUM has roughly doubled in the four years since it took the top spot. The table tracks the milestones from the disclosures available; figures are QAAUM for the period stated.
| Period | QAAUM | Note |
|---|---|---|
| March 2021 | Crossed the industry top spot | Overtook HDFC MF and ICICI Prudential MF |
| March 2024 | About Rs 9 lakh crore | Driven by passive and SIP inflows |
| December 2025 | Rs 12,49,970 crore | 15.4 per cent industry share (DRHP) |
Passive products carried much of the later growth. The ETF and index-fund book reached Rs 3.99 lakh crore by December 2025, a 29.6 per cent share of all passive assets, and made up 32 per cent of the firm’s total mutual fund QAAUM in the quarter to December 2025. EPFO equity inflows, institutional mandates, and the post-2020 retail SIP surge each fed the rise, while the SBI Nifty 50 ETF alone, at about Rs 2.05 lakh crore as of June 2026, exceeds the entire AUM of most mid-sized AMCs.
Business lines beyond mutual funds
SBIFM runs three businesses beyond the mutual fund itself, each disclosed in the March 2026 DRHP with a December 2025 market position:
- Portfolio Management Services (PMS): ranked first in India with a 39 per cent market share as of 31 December 2025, serving high-net-worth and institutional discretionary mandates.
- Alternative Investment Funds (AIF): a range of category funds for sophisticated investors with higher minimum-investment thresholds than mutual funds.
- Specialised Investment Funds (SIF): SBIFM runs the largest SIF platform in India with a 61 per cent market share, its Magnum SIF having debuted in October 2025. The total industry SIF average AUM stood at about Rs 8,120 crore for the March 2026 quarter, with Magnum SIF the largest by AUM.
Group profit for the nine months ended December 2025 rose 25.9 per cent to Rs 2,432.9 crore from Rs 1,933 crore a year earlier, on revenue up 23 per cent to Rs 3,250.6 crore, illustrating the operating leverage of the AMC model, where revenue tracks AUM and costs grow more slowly.
Investment approach and team
SBI MF’s active equity process blends fundamental research with quantitative screening, run by a central team that covers companies across market-capitalisation segments. Large-cap funds lean toward quality and growth at a reasonable price, while the contra and value funds tilt toward neglected or cyclically depressed sectors.
R. Srinivasan is the Chief Investment Officer for Equity. He joined SBIFM in May 2009, has headed the equity team since 2013, and manages the small-cap and focused-equity franchises with a conviction-led, bottom-up style centred on business quality and capital efficiency. Rajeev Radhakrishnan is the Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income. Navneet Munot was CIO of SBIFM from 2008 to 2021 before leaving to become Managing Director and CEO of HDFC Asset Management in 2021, a move that drew industry attention to the depth of the SBIFM equity bench.
Nand Kishore became Managing Director and CEO in November 2024, taking over from Shamsher Singh, who returned to the State Bank of India. Kishore joined SBI as a probationary officer in 1990 and was Deputy Managing Director (Global Markets) at the bank’s corporate centre before the deputation to SBIFM. The MD and CEO post is filled by deputation from SBI, a pattern that keeps the fund house tied to the sponsor bank’s senior cadre.
Distribution and reach
SBI Mutual Fund’s distribution edge comes from the State Bank of India branch network, which spans more than 22,000 branches and gives the fund house reach into the B30 cities (the towns beyond the top 30) that standalone AMCs struggle to cover. The branch channel underpins one of the largest folio counts in the industry and a wide geographic spread of investors.
CAMS processes transactions as the RTA. Direct-plan investors transact through the AMC portal at sbimf.com and through third-party platforms including Zerodha Coin , Groww , Kuvera , ET Money , and the MF Utility . SBI’s YONO digital banking app lets existing bank customers buy schemes in-app, channelling the sponsor’s retail base directly into the fund house.
How to invest in SBI Mutual Fund schemes
Investors can buy SBI schemes once their mutual fund KYC is complete. The KYC can be done online with an Aadhaar OTP. The choice between a direct plan and a regular plan matters: the direct plan carries a lower total expense ratio because it excludes distributor commission, so it returns more over long holding periods, while the regular plan routes through an adviser or distributor.
- Direct from the AMC: open an account at sbimf.com and invest in direct plans with no distributor commission.
- On a platform: buy direct plans on Zerodha Coin , Groww , Kuvera , or ET Money . The first-purchase flow on Coin sets out the steps.
- Through SBI banking: existing SBI customers can invest through the YONO app or a branch.
- As a SIP or lump sum: a systematic investment plan automates a fixed monthly investment; a lump sum invests a single amount at the applicable NAV .
Mutual fund investments are subject to market risk, and past performance does not indicate future returns. Match the scheme category to the goal and the time horizon.
Regulatory standing and investor service
SBI Funds Management Limited holds a valid SEBI registration as an asset management company under the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996. Its schemes follow the categories set by the SEBI scheme rationalisation circular of October 2017 , and the investment and risk-management framework is reviewed by the trustee company and inspected by SEBI. Investor complaints that the AMC does not resolve can be escalated through the SEBI SCORES portal, and the broader investor grievance escalation matrix sets out the steps. Tax on redemptions follows the capital gains tax rules for India , and gains and dividends are reported in the investor’s Annual Information Statement .
Notable events
- 29 June 1987: SBI Mutual Fund set up as a trust, the first non-UTI and first bank-sponsored mutual fund in India.
- 23 December 1993: SBI Mutual Fund registered with SEBI.
- 13 April 2011: SBI and Amundi sign the agreement formalising the present joint venture, after the SGAM stake passes to Amundi.
- 2013: SBIFM acquires the schemes of Daiwa Mutual Fund.
- 2015: SBI MF named one of two managing AMCs for the EPFO equity ETF mandate, alongside UTI MF.
- 2021: SBI MF becomes India’s largest AMC by QAAUM, surpassing HDFC MF.
- 2021: Navneet Munot leaves SBIFM to become MD and CEO of HDFC Asset Management.
- November 2024: Nand Kishore appointed MD and CEO, succeeding Shamsher Singh.
- December 2025: QAAUM reaches Rs 12,49,970 crore across 126 schemes for 16.05 million investors.
- 19 March 2026: SBIFM files its DRHP with SEBI for an offer-for-sale IPO.
See also
- Mutual fund industry in India
- Mutual funds in India
- HDFC Mutual Fund
- ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund
- Nippon India Mutual Fund
- UTI Mutual Fund
- Axis Mutual Fund
- Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund
- Mirae Asset Mutual Fund
- DSP Mutual Fund
- Franklin Templeton India Mutual Fund
- Quant Mutual Fund
- Quantum Mutual Fund
- PPFAS Mutual Fund
- Zerodha Mutual Fund
- State Bank of India
- Amundi
- Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation
- SBI Blue Chip Fund
- SBI Contra Fund
- SBI Small Cap Fund
- SBI Long Term Equity Fund
- R. Srinivasan
- Dinesh Balachandran
- Navneet Munot
- SBI Nifty 50 ETF
- Nifty 50 Index Fund
- Nifty 50
- Sensex
- Gold ETF in India
- ETF in India
- Index fund in India
- Passive investing wave in India
- Mutual fund trust structure
- Mutual fund custodian
- Mutual fund RTA
- Total expense ratio
- NAV
- Mutual fund NAV
- SIP
- SIP mutual fund India
- ELSS mutual fund India
- Direct plan vs regular plan
- Direct plan adoption in India
- How to buy your first mutual fund on Coin
- SBI MF direct
- SBI MF online direct
- How to complete MF KYC with Aadhaar OTP
- Zerodha Coin
- Groww
- Kuvera
- ET Money
- INDmoney
- Angel One MF
- MF Utility
- CAMS
- CAMS Online
- MF Central
- SEBI
- SEBI Investment Management Department
- SEBI Mutual Funds Regulations 1996
- SEBI scheme rationalisation circular 2017
- SEBI SCORES
- Investor grievance escalation matrix
- NSDL
- CDSL
- National Stock Exchange
- Bombay Stock Exchange
- Capital gains tax in India
- Annual Information Statement
- Permanent Account Number
External references
- SBI Mutual Fund official website
- SBI Funds Management corporate site
- AMFI mutual fund disclosures
- SEBI mutual fund disclosures
- State Bank of India
- Amundi
- National Stock Exchange of India
References
- SBI Funds Management Limited, Draft Red Herring Prospectus filed with SEBI, 19 March 2026 (QAAUM Rs 12,49,970 crore for the October to December 2025 quarter; SBI 61.98 per cent and Amundi 36.40 per cent ownership; 126 schemes; 16.05 million investors; passive QAAUM Rs 3.99 lakh crore).
- SBI Funds Management Limited, SEBI registration details and scheme information documents. Available at sebi.gov.in and sbimf.com.
- AMFI, AMC-wise quarterly average assets under management, quarter ending December 2025. Association of Mutual Funds in India, amfiindia.com.
- SBI Mutual Fund, scheme factsheets, June 2026 (scheme-level AUM for SBI Nifty 50 ETF, SBI Blue Chip / Large Cap Fund, SBI Contra Fund, and SBI Small Cap Fund). Available at sbimf.com.
- “SBI Funds Management appoints Nand Kishore as MD and CEO.” Business Standard, 27 November 2024.
- “EPFO to invest in ETFs from 2015-16.” The Economic Times, 12 February 2015.
- “Navneet Munot to leave SBI Mutual Fund, joins HDFC AMC as MD and CEO.” Business Standard, November 2020.