Sebi cancels registration of Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund

Market watchdog Sebi has cancelled the registration of Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund following the transfer of all its schemes to HDFC MF under a merger.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), in a statement, said that it has "cancelled the certificate of registration of Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund and has withdrawn the approval granted to Morgan Stanley Investment Management, to act as the Asset Management Company to the Mutual Fund."

Consequently, with immediate effect, the Morgan Stanley MF and Morgan Stanley Investment Management can not carry out any activity as a mutual fund and asset management company respectively.

The move comes pursuant to the transfer of schemes of Morgan Stanley MF to HDFC MF and "at the request of Morgan Stanley MF."

In December last year, country's biggest mutual fund manager HDFC MF had announced the acquisition of Morgan Stanley MF running a total of eight schemes with assets worth Rs 3,290 crore, a major consolidation exercise in the highly-dispersed sector.