UTI Mutual Fund, said on Thursday that it plans to launch an offshore fund worth $50 million, which would offer both equity and debt schemes.

"We have filed application with SEBI for launching an offshore fund," a senior UTI official told PTI in New Delhi.

He said the fund, which will have both equity and debt schemes, would have a corpus of upto $50 million as permitted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

UTI AMC has recently inked an exclusive agreement with the world's largest institutional asset manager State Street Global Advisors for getting investment advise on its overseas investments.

The AMC currently has four offshore funds -- India Fund, India Information Technology Fund, India Infrastructure Fund, and India Media, Internet and Communication Fund.

UTI is also exploring options to launch a "fund-of-funds" scheme, which would invest in equity schemes of its own and other mutual funds.

Kotak Mutual Fund recently launched such a scheme, which diversifies the risks of equity mutual funds while other fund houses are also exploring such options.

"It is still at the drawing board stage," the UTI official said, declining to give details.

The proposed funds would add to the portfolio of UTI's 44 odd open-ended schemes. Since its inception as a net asset value based mutual fund (earlier known as UTI-II), UTI

AMC has logged about 30 per cent growth in its assets under management, now at over Rs 20,500 crore (Rs 205 billion) from Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) 17 months ago.