Hello Sanjeev, Good afternoon. Request a serious suggestion on my investment planning. Have majority of my savings into FDs due to my earlier conservative approach and even now am having the tax benefit as the FDs are on my wife's name where we do get the tax benefit. Also started significant portion into MFs which is a portfolio by itself of nearly 50 lac INR. My question is, I want to plan for my younger son's future and our retirement which almost have the same time duration of about 12-13 years. How can I go for my investment if am looking for around 5-7 crore of corpus by then ? What options could you provide me assuming I do have good risk apettite now as I have seen a good 5 year cycle in the MFs now. I want you suggest 2 options, 1 - With a fresh investment now and the products which I should go around and 2 - If you advise to use the fixed deposits also to contribute to the wealth creation ( I have a total of around 60-70 lac as FDs). So please suggest a good portfolio with the above 2 scenarios.

Ans: Based on your query, we understand that you are looking for investment options to plan for your younger son’s future (Education and Marriage) and your retirement life. You have mentioned that both goals have a similar time duration of about 12-13 years. You also mentioned that you have a good risk appetite now and have seen a good 5-year cycle in mutual funds (MFs).

To achieve a corpus of around Rs 5Cr by then, we have evaluated both the options:-

Option 1: Fresh Investment: This is the most recommended option from our end as considering your investment horizon and knowledge, we suggest you to rebalance your current fixed income oriented investments to equity orient funds with 20-25% allocation towards mid and small caps.
Benefits on shifting:
• Lower tax liability on returns generated.
• Tax deferment and compounding (higher returns) in long run.

Option 2: Continuing with Fixed Deposits (FDs) (Not suggested by us)
As you know, FDs are very safe asset class and yielding higher returns due to current interest rate scenario. Although, we all know sooner and later rates will came down to support the economy so does the FD rates.
Also, FDs as investment are not considered good for horizon of more than 5 years because:
a) Yearly taxation reduce the compounding and returns.
b) Equity generally outperform in terms of returns over the same horizon.

Final Recommendation:
We suggest you to shift 30-40 Lakhs from FDs and reinvest the same in a well-diversified portfolio of Equity and hybrid funds. Also, considering your goal of reaching a corpus of 5cr with current mutual fund investments it will require whopping returns of 20%+ on annual basis for a period of 12-13 years which is not very likely to achieve.

As a summary, allocate a total of Rs 80-90 Lakhs towards diversified equity-oriented funds and keep invested Rs 20-30 Lakhs in FDs in your wife’s name for taxation benefit.