Your cover, Homeward Bound, rightly said that developers across India have latched on to “affordable housing”. However, the word ‘affordable’ seems more like a misnomer—compared to the pre-recession period, houses under this tag are much smaller now, and located in far-fl ung areas. I am speaking from experience as I am a prospective buyer, and have seen several homes before and during the downturn.

Unlike the pre-recession period, several ‘affordable’ houses I have seen of late were located in the back of beyond, and much smaller than their more lavish counterparts. True, there is a downturn and fi nances are stretched, and money plays a big part, but are these reasons enough for a fi rst-time home buyer to compromise on the basic features of a good house? Sure enough, the common homebuyer is intelligent enough to realise that this is more propaganda than reality.

Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund takes austere objection to the story, What’s In a Name?, 21 October 2009.

The journalist’s attempt to make the readers gather an impression that the proposed scheme namely ‘Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund’ is the same old equity scheme with exotic name without any differentiation and further his investment opinion to ‘Avoid SDF’ is grossly one-sided and ill-conceived.

Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund clarifies to this story below:

1) Clearance from Sebi is pending for the proposed scheme, namely, ‘Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund’, and, therefore, the details of the proposed scheme, namely, ‘Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund’, sought by the journalist could not be offered as only upon Sebi clearance, that entails observations to be carried out in the OFFER DOCUMENT required if any by Sebi and upon the finalization of the OFFER DOCUMENT after getting clearance and before launch of NFO.

2) The fund house would be in a position to discuss the proposed scheme, namely, ‘Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund’, for the valued readers only after getting clearance from Sebi.

3) This story appears to be reviewing a scheme well before Sebi clearance is established, which is irrational as in the normal course the NFO review story could appear only during the launch of NFO and not before.

4) In our view, this story singles out Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund house’s proposed scheme, namely, ‘Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund’, as there are no instances of similar stories appearing with Outlook Money where any fund house proposed scheme is reviewed during the filing of OFFER DOCUMENT and that the journalist has gone ahead to offer his investment opinion based on DRAFT OFFER DOCUMENT with his preconceived assumptions.

Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund treats this story highly objectionable and written without understanding the process of NFO launch.

We maintain that Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund has always sought to unearth opportunities for investors by launching NFOs which are novel in most ways with formidable investment themes with an objective to maximize investor returns.

We kindly request you to make a fair representation and carry our clarifi cations in your immediate forthcoming edition in order to enable your readers understand the position in the right perspective.

Looking forward to your kind support.

Best regards, Harit Tank, Media Relations Desk, Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund

Our correspondent replies: The story referred to above has been based on our analysis and understanding of the information provided by Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund in the draft offer document for its scheme Sundaram BNP Paribas Dividend Fund, which the fund house has fi led with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), presumably with the approval of the trustees of Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

We have obtained our copy of the document at the following URL: http://www.sebi.gov.in/mfdp/ sundaramdiv.pdf We stand by our story.