FM reviews sovereign wealth fund's status

A panel headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday took stock of the progress made on operationalising India's maiden sovereign wealth fund National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), including the selection of its CEO and projects shortlisted for making initial investments.

The second Governing Council meeting of the Rs 40,000 crore NIIF also discussed the follow-up action being taken on the MoUs signed with Rusnano of Russia, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) of Abu Dhabi and Qatar Investment Authority.

"The Governing Council was apprised of the interactions that have been held with a large number of long term investors, Sovereign Wealth Funds, Pension Funds from across the globe, seeking to invest in the NIIF," a finance ministry statement said.

They also discussed the guidelines for investment of the corpus of NIIF, including the investment policy, it added.

Set up in December 2015, NIIF will act as an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled projects.

The government is in the process of appointing a CEO for NIIF, in which it holds 49% while the rest will be held by private investors.

The Council was also apprised of the refinement in the structure of NIIF pursuant to discussions with investors.

NIIF will have various sector-specific or investor- specific close ended funds and they would issue various classes of units. Government along with other investor(s) will subscribe to the units of various funds.

"The status of projects shortlisted for initial investment by the NIIF and the selection process of Chief Executive Officer were also placed before the Council," the ministry said, adding that a NIIF website was launched on Wednesday.

This meeting was attended by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Duggal and SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and former Infosys director T V Mohandas Pai.