6 firms clear financial bid stage for managing EPFO funds

Six fund managers, including HSBC AMC, ICICI Prudential, Reliance Capital AMC and UTI AMC, have cleared financial bid stage for managing EPFO funds for a three-year term beginning April 1 this year.
"Six players, which had qualified initial technical bids, have also cleared the financial bids," a source said after the Finance Audit and Investment Committee (FAIC) of the EPFO.
The financial bids for appointment of new fund managers were opened today during FAIC meeting.
These six fund managers, which have qualified technical and financial bids, are HSBC AMC, ICICI Prudential, Reliance Capital AMC, ICICI Securities Primary Dealership, Birla Sun Life AMC and UTI AMC.

"The six fund mangers are competing fiercely as their financial bids are low and close," the source said.
Now based on the evaluation of technical and financial bids, the FAIC will place the name of these six firms with their cumulative score based on two rounds before EPFO's apex decision making body the Central Board of Trustees (CBT.

The CBT headed by the Labour Minister is the final authority to appoint fund managers on the basis of technical and financial bids and recommendations of FAIC.
The EPFO had opened the technical bids of eight applicants on January 9 and shortlisted these six firms.

SBI had also applied but since it has already been nominated as fund manager for another term, it need not participate in the bidding.
EPFO has a subscriber base of over five crore and receives over Rs 70,000 crore as incremental deposits every year. During the current financial year, EPFO's incremental deposits are estimated to be Rs 79,000 crore.
At present, EPFO is managing a corpus of Rs 6.5 lakh crore. EPFO's funds at present are being managed by SBI, HSBC AMC, Reliance Capital AMC and ICICI Securities Primary Dealership. The term of these fund managers ends on March 31, 2015.