HDFC Defence Fund, the only actively managed fund based on the defence sector, increased its stake in Mazagon Dock, Tata Motors and three other stocks in June, according to the monthly portfolio disclosed by ACE MF.

The fund added 1.39 lakh shares of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders and had 12.89 lakh shares in its portfolio in June compared to 11.50 lakh in May. It added nearly 6 lakh shares of Tata Motors and had 11 lakh shares in June.

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Among the other three stocks, the fund added the maximum number of shares of Bharat Electronics. The fund added 13.42 lakh shares of Bharat Electronics in its portfolio taking the total share count to 3.80 crore in June compared to 3.66 crore in May.

Around 42,226 shares of BEML were added to the portfolio in June followed by 13,619 shares of Bosch.

A complete exit was made from Rishabh Instruments by selling 3.86 lakh shares from the portfolio worth market value of Rs 20.47 crore. The fund did not add any new stock nor it reduced its exposure in any stock.

The exposure in 17 stocks remained unchanged which included some names such as Bharat Forge, Eicher Motors, Centum Electronics, Premier Explosives, Astra Microwave Products, Solar Industries India, Diffusion Engineers, MTAR Technologies, Cyient DLM, Bharat Dynamics, HAL, Data Patterns (India), Aequs, Sedemac Mechatronics, Ideaforge Technology, Power Mech Projects, and JNK India.

In June, the defence sector fund had 22 stocks in its portfolio compared with 23 stocks in the previous month. The portfolio of the fund was spread across seven sectors such as capital goods, automobile & ancillaries, infrastructure, telecom, chemicals, electricals, ship building and telecom.

The defence sector fund had the highest allocation in the capital goods sector of around 51.50% in June, followed by automobile & ancillaries of around 21.54% and chemicals of around 14.89%.

As a percentage of NAV, the fund had the highest allocation of 14.86% in Bharat Electronics and 14.56% in Bharat Forge. The fund had an allocation of 11.34% and 11.33% in HAL and Solar Industries India respectively.

As of June 30, 2026 the fund had an AUM of Rs 10,529 crore. Launched on June 2, 2023, the performance is benchmarked against Nifty India Defence - TRI and is managed by Rahul Baijal and Priya Ranjan.

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The fund has completed three years in the market and has failed to outperform its benchmark in the longer horizon whereas has outperformed its benchmark in the shorter horizon. In the last three months, the fund delivered 19.04% return compared to 13.90% by the benchmark.

The fund delivered 22.26% in the last six months compared to 18.39% by the benchmark. It gave 13.50% in the last one year against 5.66% by the benchmark. In the last three years, the fund delivered a return of 41.35% against 51.59% by the benchmark. Since its inception, the fund has delivered a CAGR of 41.01%.

Around 41.67% was invested in the large caps, 24.69% was in mid caps, 31.47% in small caps and 2.17% in others.

HDFC Defence Fund is an open-ended equity scheme investing in Defence & allied sector companies. The investment objective of the fund is to provide long-term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of Defence & allied sector companies.

The fund is suitable for investors who are seeking to generate long-term capital appreciation/income and want investment predominantly in equity and equity related instruments of defence and allied sector companies.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

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