New Delhi: The government has held a meeting with the LIC, SBI, Punjab National Bank, and Bank of Baroda, the four institutional sponsors of the UTI Mutual Fund, in order to arrive at a new ownership pattern for the country's oldest mutual fund.

According to reports, the meeting was called primarily to assess the price that each of the sponsors would be willing to offer to take up the sole responsibility of running the fund.

However, no details of the discussions were forthcoming. "It was only a preliminary meeting. Nothing has been decided," said A K Shukla, Chairman, LIC told reporters.

Ashok Jha, secretary (economic affairs), U K Sinha, joint secretary (capital markets), A K Purwar, chairman, SBI, A K Khandelwal, CMD, Bank of Baroda, and C.P. Swarnkar, executive director of PNB attended the meeting.