The Contrarian

"Mutual fund investing is always about value strategy," says Ramanathan K., ING Investment Management's Chief Investment Officer. It is this investment philosophy that compels Ramanathan, 37, to always keep an eye out on the growth prospects of various stocks, even though his fund's focus is on dividend yield. When the financial crisis struck, he saw opportunity.

"The postcrisis correction saw prices beaten down for many stocks to such an extent that they became dividend yielding stocks," says Ramanathan. And with the recovery, these were the stocks that gave the best returns. ING Dividend Yield Fund invests in stocks whose dividend yield exceeds those of the Nifty. The current dividend yield of the fund is 2.3 per cent, which is more than twice the dividend yield on the Nifty, 0.91 per cent. The fund has about 60 per cent exposure to mid caps.

With his wife working for a leading foreign bank, Ramanathan's weekend plans swing with the moods of his sons - Rahul and Rohit. Badminton and swimming help him to unwind over the weekend. Annual vacations are sacrosanct and Ramanathan usually takes his family to the beaches. Ramanathan looks at mutual funds as the lowest cost investment vehicles with tax benefits.

He prefers to decide when to invest and has no regular systematic investment plans. But he would soon be looking at them. "At the current level, I would opt for SIPs to average out volatility," he says. ING Dividend Yield Fund has a new manager in Ankur Arora, who took over as the fund manager in December 2009, but the fund house felt he wouldn't be the right man to profile in this survey.

WINNER: Ramanathan K.

FUND: ING Dividend Yield

FUND TYPE: Equity/ Mid Cap and Small Cap

3-YEAR ANNUALISED RETURNS: 20.29%

INVESTING STRATEGY: Look for high dividend yielding stocks; don't ignore growth stocks

GURU: Bharat Shah, ex-CIO of Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund

RUNNER-UP 1 : Ankit Sancheti, Birla Sun Life Dividend Yield Plus

RUNNER-UP 2 : Kenneth Andrade, IDFC Premier Equity Plan A