UTI MF leads six firms selected to manage provident fund corpus

10 February 2009

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has short-listed six fund houses - UTI Mutual Fund, IDFC, Reliance, SBI, ICICI Prudential and Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund - to manage the pension fund of private-sector employees.

Among the six, the best offer of 0.09 basis points had been made by UTI Mutual Fund according to PFRDA chairman D Swarup.

With UTI Mutual Fund having made the lowest bid, other players have to match the UTI bid to be considered for appointment as fund managers. Fund managers will be appointed for a period of three years after board approval.

The pension fund regulator had last month invited expressions of interest from companies for managing private sector pension funds to which around 21 companies had responded.

Meanwhile the regulator is awaiting investment guidelines from the Deepak Parekh Committee. The report of the committee lays down guidelines for investment of the pension money collected by the PFRDA. The report is expected by the end of the week.

The regulator has said that it would be able to open the new pension system for general public on the scheduled date, 1 April 2009.