Coal mines PF body appoints 3 asset managers

Reliance Capital AMC, SBI MF and ICICI Securities to manage Rs 75,000 cr from next month

The Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO) has given a mandate to handle Rs 75,000 crore worth of assets to three asset managers.

This comes after three months of retirement fund body Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) allowing pension money to be invested in equities.

SBI Mutual Fund’s portfolio management division, Reliance Capital Asset Management and ICICI Securities Primary Dealership have been given the mandate to manage the CMPFO corpus for three years starting November 1. The money will come from CMPFO’s Coal Mines Provident Scheme. The three will be managing an equal amount of Rs 25,000 crore each.

CMPFO administer four schemes - Coal Mines Provident Fund Scheme, Coal Mines Family Pension Scheme, Coal Mines Pension Scheme and Coal Mines Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme. All the eligible employees in the coal industry, public and private sector, are covered under these.

Coal India, the country’s near-monopolist mining company, had a cash surplus of Rs 53,092 crore as on end-March 2015.

Those in the sector expect more such funds to be flowing from government institutions into stock markets. The government has said that in the coming years, the allocation from EPFO assets might go up to 15 per cent of the total, from the current  five per cent.

Fund managers have geared up for the opportunity as they expect large amount of corpus will find its way into the professional asset management space.