Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

HDFC chief moots isolating US-64 operations

BS Bureau

HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh has recommended the complete separation of the troubled US-64 from other continuing schemes of the Unit Trust of India. He has also suggested that there should be different teams of fund managers for different schemes.

"There should be a Chinese Wall between their operations. The fund manager of US-64 must not know what other fund managers are buying or selling," Parekh told mediapersons in Calcutta. He was in the city to attend the annual general meeting of ICI Ltd.

Parekh, who headed the committee set up on the restructuring of the US-64 scheme two years ago, said that splitting US-64 into debt and equity would not help revive the beleaguered scheme. "Splitting it into two separate schemes, debt and equity, would not work because of the scheme's high exposure to equity. It will create an imbalance instead," he said.

The Parekh committee had recommended that the UTI flagship scheme should reduce its exposure to equity owing to the higher risk profile and should switch some portion of its investible funds to debt instruments instead on grounds of lower risk profile. While asked whether his committee's recommendations had been followed, Parekh said: "All the facts are out before us and one can see if they were followed."

Parekh also said that the case of US-64 should be seen and treated in isolation. "UTI should see that the problem of US-64 does not spill over to other schemes. Moreover, the US-64 should also return the borrowings from other schemes," Parekh said.

When questioned on the issue of political pressure influencing UTI investment decisions, Parekh said he was not aware of any such pressures.

Powered by

YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
The UTI Crisis
The Rediff-Business Standard Special
The Budget 2001-2002 Special
Money
Business News

Tell us what you think of this report