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Sen, Nayak in race for top UTI post

Two former officials of Unit Trust of India are in the race for its top post after its chairman P S Subramanyam resigned on Wednesday, banking sources said.

Basudeb Sen, head of Industrial Investment Bank of India, and P J Nayak, chief of UTI Bank, are considered leading candidates, the sources said.

Sen was executive director at the UTI and moved to IIBI last year, while Nayak was executive trustee at the giant fund manager before moving to UTI Bank last year.

Subramanyam quit as head of the country's largest mutual fund two days after UTI suspended until the year-end redemptions from its largest fund, US-64.

UTI is the largest investor in Indian stock markets, and also a big player in its bond and call money markets.

The finance ministry appointed K.G. Vassal, UTI's senior-most executive director, as acting head of the trouble-ridden organisation.

Bad career move

Some analysts expect the government to have a difficult time finding a top-notch finance executive to head UTI, which faces painful changes to avoid a recurrence of the problems which have pushed its largest fund into financial trouble twice within the past four years.

Subramanyam's successor will presumably preside over a change in the way UTI sets the redemption price for US-64 units. It is expected to begin linking the price to the fund's net asset value.

UTI does not now publicly disclose the fund's NAV. But analysts estimate it at less than Rs 10 per unit, far below the price of Rs 14.25 paid in May.

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