First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) vs NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund

First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) is run by First Capital Asset Management Limited and NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund by NDB Wealth Management Ltd, so this compares two houses as well as two funds. Both are balanced funds licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, which means they are doing broadly the same job, and the differences below are differences in how each house has chosen to do it.

The clearest difference is the management fee. First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) charges 1.00% a year against NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund's 1.50%, a gap of 0.50 percentage points. On LKR 100,000 held for a year that is about LKR 500 more retained by a holder of First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF), before any difference in what the two funds actually earn. The fee is deducted from the fund's assets before the unit price is struck, so it applies whatever the market does — which makes it the one number here that is knowable in advance.

Over the 180 days to the date shown, NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund returned −4.00% against First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF)'s −6.92%, a gap of 2.91 percentage points. That is one window: a different 180 days would very likely order them differently, and neither figure predicts the next six months. Both are price returns on the bid side and exclude income a fund distributed rather than accrued into its price.

Both have moved by a similar amount, with annualised volatility of 17.42% and 18.61%. For two funds in the same category that is the expected result, and it means neither has taken noticeably more price movement than the other to arrive at its return.

First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) opens at LKR 1,000 where NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund requires LKR 5,000, so for a smaller first investment only one of the two is available at all.

Among the 8 balanced funds we price daily, First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) ranks 4th on 180-day return and NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund 2nd, against a category median of −6.93% over the same window. On fee they sit 3rd and 6th cheapest of the 8, where the median is 1.00%. On how much the price has moved, First Capital Equity Fund (FCEF) is 2nd steadiest and NDB Wealth Growth & Income Fund 4th.