EPFO appoints SBI, 3 others to manage Rs 3.5 lakh cr corpus

Besides SBI and ICICI Securities, Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the high decision making body of the EPFO, also approved the names of Reliance Capital and HSBC Asset Management Company (AMC).

The CBT, however, dropped the name of ICICI Prudential which was recommended by the EPFO's Financial Advisory Council (FIC) earlier in the day, sources said.

The decision to appoint fund managers for the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) was taken by the CBT which was presided over by Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge.

As many as ten companies had shown interest in managing the corpus of the EPFO.
The other companies which were in the race for managing the EPFO funds were Kotak Mahindra AMC, Securities Trading Corporation of India, UTI AMC, Birla Sun Life AMC and Franklin Templeton AMC.

Among those companies approved by the FIC, ICICI Securities quoted the lowest rate of 3 paise per annum for managing Rs 10,000, sources said.

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

The EPFO had appointed multiple fund managers for the first time in July, 2008 for earning better rate of return on deposits for its 4.72 crore subscribers.Before that, SBI was the sole fund manager for the retirement fund body since its inception in 1952