Credit funds in India see large outflows on Franklin Templeton’s shock

By Nupur Acharya
Indian credit risk funds suffered large redemptions in April after Franklin Templeton’s shock decision to wind up $4.1 billion of such plans triggered fresh turbulence in the nation’s debt market.

The category saw the net withdrawals of 192 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) last month, up from outflows of Rs 5570 crore in March, according to data released Friday by the Association of Mutual Funds in India.

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“The Franklin event intensified redemptions in credit funds that we saw in March,” said Vidya Bala, head of research and co-founder at Chennai-based Primeinvestor.in. “There’s a clear flight to safety as flows to gilt funds have jumped and a good chunk would have moved to deposits.”

Equity funds received a net 62.1 billion rupees, the smallest inflow this year, as the world’s most expansive lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus infections stalled economic activity and disrupted processes at mutual fund distributors. Still, contributions from regular savers into equity funds stayed above the 80-billion rupee mark for the 17th straight month, according to AMFI.

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To be sure, the redemptions in credit funds tapered after the central bank offered a credit facility to avoid distressed sales of assets by funds. They dropped 81.5% to 7.9 billion rupees on April 30 from a peak of 42.9 billion rupees on April 27, AMFI said earlier this month.

The Reserve Bank of India on April 27 offered as much as 500 billion rupees to banks for lending to mutual funds to contain the fallout of the Franklin’s freeze.

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Credit risk funds have been witnessing outflows for more than a year following a year-and-a-half of turmoil for debt markets, which began with the defaults at IL&FS Group in 2018 and spread to corporates including the Essel Group and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group. The ensuing cash crunch prompted funds to either write down or offer standstills on investments or share sales.

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The market regulator on Thursday asked Franklin Templeton to focus on returning money to investors at the earliest. The regulator also flagged that some funds continued to invest in opaque debt paper despite regulatory changes to safeguard investors made in September.