Same name, different fund

You chose a fund for what it was: a mostly large-cap portfolio, say, with a steady hand and low turnover. Two years later it has the same name, the same category and the same benchmark. It may not be the same fund.

Style drift is a gradual change in how a fund invests — which part of the market it fishes in, how concentrated it is, how often it trades — without any change to its label. It often follows a fund manager change, though it doesn’t have to. Neither shows up in the returns table until after it has already changed what you own.

The rules don’t stop either. The list kept by SEBI (the Securities and Exchange Board of India) of of a scheme’s fundamental attributes — the things a fund house can’t change without writing to every unitholder and offering a 30-day exit at NAV (net asset value) with no exit load — covers the type of scheme, the investment objective and asset-allocation ranges, and the terms of issue: liquidity, fees and any safety net (paragraph 1.9.1 of SEBI’s Master Circular for Mutual Funds, under Regulation 22(9)(c) of the 2026 Regulations, which replaced Regulation 18(15A) of the 1996 ones). The fund manager isn’t on that list, and neither is anything a manager does within the category’s rules. So a manager change is typically announced by an addendum to the scheme documents, and drift isn’t announced at all. You find both by reading the factsheet.

The formula: measuring drift

The simplest drift measure uses the market-cap split every equity factsheet prints — large, mid, small, cash — and asks how much of the portfolio has moved between bands:

Band shift = ½ × ( |Δ large| + |Δ mid| + |Δ small| + |Δ cash| )

  where Δ = weight now − weight then, in percentage points

Halving is because every point that leaves one band lands in another; without it you’d count each move twice. A band shift of 0 means the same mix; 100 would mean a completely different one. It’s the band-level cousin of the portfolio overlap calculation, and it’s coarse on purpose — you can do it from four numbers on a factsheet.

Alongside it, three other factsheet lines move when style drifts: the top-10 weight (concentration), the number of stocks, and portfolio turnover (how much of the portfolio was traded over the past year).

Worked example: a hypothetical flexi-cap fund

The factsheets below are invented for a hypothetical “Example Flexi Cap Fund”. No real fund’s data is used, and no real manager is being assessed — drift is something you check for, not a verdict on anyone.

Factsheet Manager Large cap Mid cap Small cap Cash Top-10 weight Stocks Turnover
Mar 2024 Manager A (since 2015) 70% 18% 8% 4% 46% 42 28%
Sep 2024 Manager A 69% 19% 8.5% 3.5% 45% 44 30%
Mar 2025 Manager B (since Oct 2024) 56% 24% 17% 3% 40% 58 74%
Sep 2025 Manager B 44% 27% 26% 3% 36% 67 96%

Band shift between consecutive factsheets (pp = percentage points):

From To Band shift Change in small cap Change in large cap
Mar 2024 Sep 2024 1.5 pp 0.5 pp −1 pp
Sep 2024 Mar 2025 13.5 pp 8.5 pp −13 pp
Mar 2025 Sep 2025 12 pp 9 pp −12 pp

Reading it:

  1. Under the old manager, nothing moved. A band shift of 1.5 percentage points in six months is ordinary drift from prices moving, not from decisions.
  2. After the change, the fund moved in steps. The band shift was 13.5 points in the first six months and 12 in the next. Between the Mar 2024 and Sep 2025 factsheets, a net 27% of the portfolio changed bands.
  3. The small-cap share went from 8% to 26% — about 3.25 times — while large caps fell from 70% to 44%.
  4. Everything else agrees. Turnover rose from 28% to 96%, the number of stocks from 42 to 67, and the top-10 weight fell from 46% to 36%.
  5. All of it was within the rules. Flexi cap requires at least 65% in equity and sets no minimum in any market-cap band (see the categories post). Every one of these factsheets is compliant. The label never changed.

What changed is the fund’s risk. A portfolio with a quarter in small caps tends to fall further in a sell-off than one with 8% there — the drawdown you signed up for is no longer the drawdown you have. Whether the new approach is better or worse is a separate question this post doesn’t answer; the point is that it’s different, and the investor who chose the Mar 2024 fund now owns the Sep 2025 one.

🧒 Explain it like I'm 10 (optional — skip if this is already clear)

You join a cricket academy because the coach teaches patient batting — leave the bad balls, build an innings.

The coach leaves. The academy keeps its name, its ground and its uniforms. The new coach teaches everyone to hit sixes from ball one.

Nothing on the gate has changed. But if you’d wanted to learn patient batting, you’re now at a different academy. The only way to know is to go and watch a practice session — for a fund, that’s reading the factsheet.

How to check a real fund

  1. Pull two factsheets a year apart — or either side of a manager change. Fund houses usually keep an archive on their websites.
  2. Compute the band shift from the market-cap split. A few points is noise; double digits within a year deserves a closer look.
  3. Compare top-10 weight, number of stocks and turnover. Drift usually moves all three.
  4. Check the manager field and its “managing since” date. If the track record you liked is older than the current manager’s tenure, it isn’t theirs — the factsheet post made the same point.
  5. Look at sector weights too. A fund can hold its market-cap mix steady while swinging between sectors, which the band shift won’t catch.

Common mistakes

  • Waiting for the returns to tell you. Returns reveal a change in style only after it has either worked or hurt you. The factsheet reveals it within months.
  • Assuming the category protects you. It limits drift only where the rule bites. A mid-cap fund can’t go below 65% in mid caps; a flexi-cap fund can go almost anywhere. Know how much room your fund’s category leaves.
  • Treating every manager change as a reason to sell. Some fund houses run a process meant to outlast any one manager. A manager change is a reason to check — two factsheets, four numbers — not a signal in itself.
  • Judging drift by a single month. Market moves shift band weights without any trading. Look for a sustained move alongside higher turnover.

Takeaway: A fund can change manager and drift in style without changing its name, category or benchmark, and neither needs your consent. Compare two factsheets a year apart — the market-cap split, top-10 weight, number of stocks and turnover — and you’ll see a changed fund months before its returns would tell you.