That’s the Specialized Investment Fund — SEBI’s new ₹10-lakh category: professional long-short strategies inside a mutual-fund wrapper, structured so more of what you earn stays yours. We track every SIF in India daily and explain each one the way a friend in the industry would — plainly, with sources you can check.
By Trustner Asset Services Pvt. Ltd. — AMFI-registered Mutual Fund & SIF distributor, ARN-286886 · investments in Regular plans · SIFs are subject to market risks. Full disclosures in the footer below.
Start where you are — everything here is education-first, and nothing is locked behind a form.
Every live SIF with its official AMFI NAV, trailing returns, AUM, risk band and age. Open any fund for the full picture, or put any two side by side.
NAV: official AMFI SIF NAV feed (Regular plan, Growth option, daily). 1M, 3M and SI (NAV against the NFO face value) are computed from our archive of official AMFI NAVs, and 6M from the same archive; a window a fund is too young for shows “—”. AUM (whole scheme, all plans) and risk band: Value Research (7 Aug 2026). Benchmark returns are not shown; each AMC’s factsheet compares the scheme with its benchmark. Each fund page gives its return in SEBI’s advertisement format; the live tracker adds 1-day and 1-week returns for every fund.
Effective 1 April 2025, SEBI introduced the SIF — a new class of investment vehicle under the Mutual Funds Regulations. It is structurally a scheme under the same mutual fund trust (same trustee, custodian, auditor) but with a sharper toolkit: up to 25% unhedged short positions, exotic strategy categories, and a higher entry barrier of ₹10 lakh.
Created by amending the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations 1996, effective 16 December 2024. The operating framework was issued through three SEBI circulars in February–April 2025.
Aggregate ₹10 lakh per PAN per AMC across all SIF strategies of that AMC. Accredited investors qualify at ₹1 lakh. Mutual fund holdings are excluded from this threshold.
SIFs can take unhedged short positions up to 25% of NAV via exchange-traded derivatives. This is the structural feature unavailable in conventional mutual funds.
SEBI permits exactly seven sub-strategies: 3 equity-oriented (Equity LS, Ex-Top 100 LS, Sector Rotation LS), 2 debt-oriented (Debt LS, Sectoral Debt LS), 2 hybrid (Active Asset Allocator, Hybrid LS).
Equity-oriented SIFs taxed at 12.5% LTCG (≥12 months), 20% STCG. Hybrid <65% equity gets 12.5% LTCG after 24 months. Same as MFs, and tax arises only when you redeem — unlike PMS, where gains are taxed as the manager sells, or AIF Cat-III, taxed at fund level.
Mandatory bi-monthly portfolio disclosure plus 5-level risk band. Closed-ended and interval strategies must list on NSE/BSE. Higher transparency than PMS.
SIF was born from SEBI's master circular dated 27 February 2025. The category went live on 1 April 2025. Here's where it stands today, and why understanding it matters for any investor with ₹10 lakh+ to deploy.
We cover all 33 SIFs in the category, publishing per-fund AUM for the 28 that disclose it (Value Research and AMC disclosures). Category-wide, total SIF assets reached ₹31,175 Cr at end-August 2026 — up 34.5% in a single month, across 1,25,539 investor folios (AMFI monthly data). All AUM we publish is whole-scheme — Direct and Regular combined, the same basis used for mutual funds. Equity-oriented strategies are now the largest group by count (19 of the 33 schemes in AMFI’s report), while hybrid strategies still hold 68.6% of category assets.
The roster keeps widening: Mirae (Platinum), HSBC (RedHex), Kotak (Infinity) and — most recently — Invesco (Summit) and Jio BlackRock (Prism) are all now live. Mahindra Manulife (MPOWER) is announced, and more of India's largest houses — HDFC, DSP, Nippon and Axis among them — have SIF approvals or filings in progress.
See the live SIF universeSource: AMFI SIF monthly report, net assets as on 31 August 2026. Per-fund AUM: Value Research (whole-scheme) and AMC disclosures.
The single most useful framing for any HNI is the four-way comparison. SIF inherits MF's tax efficiency and disclosure rigour while gaining PMS-style flexibility — at one-fifth the entry barrier of PMS.
| Dimension | Mutual Fund | SIF | PMS | AIF Cat-III |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum ticket | ₹100–₹500 | ₹10 lakh (₹1L accredited) | ₹50 lakh | ₹1 crore |
| Long-short capability | Hedging only | Yes — up to 25% unhedged | Yes | Yes (no statutory cap) |
| Equity LTCG tax | 12.5% (>12 mo) | 12.5% (>12 mo) | 12.5% (>12 mo) on each holding sold; 20% if sold within 12 months | Cat-III: at fund level |
| Liquidity | Daily | Daily / weekly / monthly / interval | T+2 to T+5 | Lock-in 1–3 yrs |
| Pooled / Separate | Pooled | Pooled | Separate demat per investor | Pooled |
| TER cap | ~2.25% (asset slab) | ~2.25% | 1–2.5% mgmt + 10–20% perf | 1.5–2.5% + 15–20% perf |
| Disclosure | Monthly portfolio | Bi-monthly portfolio + ISID | Monthly + on-demand | Quarterly |
Illustrative example — not a forecast. Assumptions: ₹1 crore invested, 12% gross annual return, 10-year horizon, top tax slab. The figures below are model outputs showing how the tax-bucket difference (SIF 12.5% LTCG vs AIF Cat-III ~39% effective) compounds — your actual result depends on real returns and your own tax position. Run your own numbers in the calculator.
SIF vs equivalent AIF Cat-III, on a 12% gross return for a top-bracket investor.
On an initial ₹1 crore investment — purely from the tax-bucket arbitrage.
SIF costs are charged as an expense ratio within SEBI’s mutual-fund limits, with no performance fee. PMS and AIF fee structures vary and can include one. Compare every live fund’s TER on the tracker.
To prevent proliferation, SEBI permits exactly seven sub-strategies. Each AMC may launch only one strategy per category. Hybrid Long-Short dominates the live universe today.
≥80% equity, up to 25% unhedged short. Long-short across all caps for net-equity flexibility.
≥65% in stocks ranked >100 by market cap (mid + small caps). 25% short cap. SMID alpha hunt.
≥80% in up to 4 sectors at any time. Concentrated thematic bets with derivative hedging.
≥80% debt allocation with derivative-overlay short. Targets duration alpha and credit dispersion.
Sector-concentrated debt long-short. Earlier-stage category — yet to see live launches.
Dynamic across equity / debt / commodity. Tactical asset-shift mandate with derivative shorts.
Defined equity-debt bands with disciplined arbitrage and derivative hedging. The dominant SIF strategy in the live universe.
We track 33 live SIF strategies across 17 AMCs with official AMFI NAVs. Total category assets reached ₹31,175 Cr by end-August 2026 (all plans, AMFI monthly data), after net inflows of ₹7,699 Cr in the month; Aditya Birla Sun Life and SBI added three equity long-short strategies at the end of August 2026, with Mahindra Manulife still to enter. Below are the nine largest SIFs by disclosed AUM (whole scheme, all plans; Value Research, as of 7 Aug 2026), sorted by size only — not a ranking or a preference. The full universe, with NAV, AUM, TER and risk band, lives on the Funds page.
| Fund | AMC | Sub-strategy | AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Altiva Hybrid Long-Short | Edelweiss | Hybrid LS | ₹9,268 Cr |
| Magnum Hybrid Long-Short | SBI | Hybrid LS | ₹3,800 Cr |
| iSIF Equity Ex-Top 100 LS | ICICI Prudential | Equity Ex-Top 100 LS | ₹2,475 Cr |
| Altiva Equity Ex-Top 100 LS | Edelweiss | Equity Ex-Top 100 LS | ₹1,366 Cr |
| iSIF Hybrid Long-Short | ICICI Prudential | Hybrid LS | ₹1,323 Cr |
| RedHex Hybrid Long-Short | HSBC | Hybrid LS | ₹1,073 Cr |
| Infinity Hybrid Long-Short | Kotak Mahindra | Hybrid LS | ₹859 Cr |
| iSIF Active Asset Allocator | ICICI Prudential | Active Asset Allocator | ₹759 Cr |
| qSIF Equity Long-Short | Quant | Equity LS | ₹758 Cr |
The latest headlines on Specialized Investment Funds from across India's financial press — refreshed automatically every few hours.
Headlines are aggregated from public sources and open on the original publisher's site. They are provided for information only and are not endorsed by Trustner. For our own analysis, read the Insights timeline and August 2026 Coverage Report.
Trustner Asset Services is among the earliest AMFI-registered SIF Distributors in India — led by a team with over 200 years of combined experience across investments, compliance and technology.

“The SIF is a significant new category for Indian investors, and we made it a firm-wide priority. Whether you invest ₹10 lakh or ₹5 crore, you deserve clear, sourced information on how each fund works, what it costs and what it holds — and the scheme documents to check it yourself.




