The New Fund Offer (NFO) for the Altiva Hybrid Long-Short Fund, Edelweiss Mutual Fund's debut product under its Altiva SIF platform, opened for subscription today and will remain open until 15 October 2025. The launch marks the arrival of India's first hybrid-category Specialised Investment Fund, and comes roughly four and a half months after Edelweiss first announced its entry into the SIF space.

Key features at a glance

  • Category: Hybrid Long-Short Fund (interval scheme)

  • Minimum investment: ₹10 lakh (₹1 lakh for accredited investors)

  • NFO window: 1 October – 15 October 2025

  • Investment modes: Lump sum, SIP, STP and SWP

  • Redemption window: Twice weekly, on Mondays and Wednesdays

  • Benchmark: NIFTY 50 Hybrid Composite Debt 50:50 Index

The fund's stated strategy is to blend equity opportunities with income from arbitrage, derivatives, special situations and fixed-income instruments. On the equity side, it will look to capture event-driven opportunities such as IPOs, FPOs, rights issues, buybacks, open offers, mergers, demergers, QIPs, delistings and index-rebalancing events. On the derivatives side, the fund plans to use strategies such as covered calls, straddles and protective puts to manage volatility and generate incremental yield, while retaining the ability to take limited short exposure — something standard mutual funds cannot do.

The fund will be jointly managed by Bharat Lahoti and Bhavesh Jain on the equity side, Dhawal Dalal and Pranavi Kulkarni on the debt side, and Amit Vora for overseas allocations — bringing together Edelweiss's existing fixed income and equity derivatives expertise under one umbrella product.

On taxation, the fund follows the treatment applicable to hybrid SIFs: short-term capital gains (up to 24 months) are taxed as per the investor's income slab, while long-term capital gains (beyond 24 months) attract a 12.5% tax rate — a structure the AMC has flagged as more efficient than several existing hybrid mutual fund categories for long-term holders.

Radhika Gupta used the NFO opening to caution investors against expecting fixed or assured return numbers from SIFs as a category, noting in a social media post that returns "depend" on market conditions and strategy execution rather than any guaranteed outcome. Distributors and wealth managers are advising that the product is best suited to investors with a medium-to-long-term horizon, a reasonable understanding of derivatives, and comfort with a structure that is materially newer and less track-record-tested than conventional mutual funds.