EPFO appoints new fund managers

DELHI: SBI, ICICI Securities, Reliance Capital and HSBC Asset Management Company have been appointed fund managers for the Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation or EPFO’s more than Rs 3 lakh crore corpus for the next three years.

SBI will manage 35% of the funds, ICICI Securities will manage 25% of the funds while the other two will manage 20% each, Central Provident Fund Commissioner S Chatterjee said.

The four asset management companies were chosen by the the Central Board of Trustees--the EPFO’s top decision making body--out of five shortlisted by the EPFO’s financial advisory committee. ICICI Prudential, the fifth contender, got dropped.

The performance of the fund managers will be reviewed after one year by the CBT and if they do not perform up to expectations, they could be dropped, labour minister Malikarjun Kharge said.

Among the five shortlisted companies, ICICI Securities quoted the lowest rate of 3 paise per annum for managing Rs 10,000, according to an official.

Reliance Capital quoted a rate of 4 paise per annum for managing Rs 10,000, HSBC AMC quoed 36 paise and SBI qoted Re 1.

The EPFO had appointed multiple fund managers for the first time in July, 2008 for earning better returns on deposits for its 4.72 crore subscribers. The term of the four fund managers, ICICI Pru, HSBC AMC, Reliance Capital and SBI, appointed in 2008 expired on March 31 2011.