(Video) Rajya Sabha TV (RSTV) The Big Picture: Easel Debt Crisis & FMPs

Topic: Easel Debt Crisis & FMPs

Guest:

Kshitiz Mahajan, (Mutual Fund Advisor)
Puja Mehra, (Economic Journalist)
Madhukar Seth, (Former Member, SEBI)

Topic Description:

The crisis in the Essel group has led to ripples in the market... with short-term debt investors facing heat as the some of the country’s leading mutual fund houses like Kotak Mutual Fund delaying full redemption in six of its fixed maturity plans (FMPs)... The HDFC Mutual Fund too has announced plans to roll over one of its fixed maturity plans that is coming up for redemption...

This is due to delay in recovering money lent by the schemes to two Essel Group companies, Edisons Utility Works Pvt Ltd and Konti Infrapower & Multiventures Pvt Ltd...

In a statement... the Essel group has said... that it “has reached at an arrangement with the lenders with a resolution time frame of September 2019. The lenders have unanimously extended support to the group and the same has positively resulted in saving the loss of public money...”

The mutual fund industry has a debt exposure of Rs 7,500 crore to the Zee/Essel Group. Of this, around Rs 1,500 crore is in fixed maturity plans with the rest in open-ended debt mutual fund schemes. Kotak and HDFC Mutual Fund hold most of the debt in fixed maturity plans.

Last October’s non-banking financial sector crisis sparked by the collapse of Infrastructure Lending and Financial Services (IL&FS) led to serious liquidity crisis... and the Essel Group’s private unlisted infrastructure companies were among those affected impacting the shares of Zee Entertainment shares which saw a collapse...