Temple and charitable trusts have always been insulated from recession. Where India Inc may have been struggling to meet sales and profit targets each quarter, these trusts seem to have no problem growing their top- and bottom lines.
Now, not surprisingly, they’re looking beyond investing in traditional investment options such as bank deposits, with devotees also diversifying their portfolios, to options like equity mutual funds, gold futures and real estate.
Take the case of Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust, a charitable trust founded by yoga instructor Ramdev barely five years ago. It reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 63 crore on net sales of Rs 69 crore in 2008-09, against a PAT of Rs 21 crore on net sales of Rs 25 crore for 2007-08.
Iskcon Charities, one of the many associated trusts of Iskcon Bangalore, generated a PAT of Rs 1.99 crore and an operating income of Rs 13.85 crore in the financial year 2008-09.
For any target-driven company such levels of profitability would be a dream. But with trusts like Patanjali and Iskcon getting savvier with their investments along with the tax benefits they enjoy, getting richer is not such a hard task.
For instance, Gokulam Properties, promoted by Iskcon Charities, has started on the second phase of an integrated township, with commercial centres, business centres and conventional centre.
The super-luxury apartments are available at a price between Rs 43 lakh and Rs 1.76 crore.
The township is part of a mega-project called Iskcon Krishna Lila Park, a tourism project with an investment of Rs 350 crore.
India Heritage Foundation and Iskcon Charities, two of the associate trusts of Iskcon Bangalore, have acquired about 42.50 acres in Bangalore to develop it as a Indian Heritage Township and the Krishna Lila Park, which will be built on the lines of Disney World, by using “technology assisted multi-sensory immersive and experiential story telling” methods.
The idea is to develop a trust property and generate income to further the objects of the trust.
Iskcon had already invested a substantial amount of money in the first phase of Gokulam, comprising more than 600 residential units, and tried to roll out similar projects in more cities, said a spokesperson at Iskcon Bangalore.
Mutual funds have also become a favourite with the trusts. “Religious trusts do bring in a big amount of money in mutual funds. Generally, such trusts invest in debt schemes, but now equity schemes are also gaining popularity among such trusts,” said a senior official at SBI Mutual Fund.
UTI Mutual Fund is the only mutual fund to run a scheme for trusts called the UTI-Charitable, Religious Trust And Registered Society Fund. The debt-oriented income scheme seeks to invest not more than 30 per cent of the funds in equity related instruments and the balance in debt and money market instruments with a low to medium risk profile.
Some of the investors in this scheme include the richest temples in the country like Puri’s Jagannath Temple and Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak, apart from the PM’s National Relief fund and associated trusts of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission.
Earlier, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) trust, one of the world’s richest temples, and the trust associated with the Vaishno Devi shrine also invested in the scheme.
According to the rules of TTD, the trust can only invest its surpluses in fixed or gold deposits schemes of public sector banks. However, TTD had also evinced interest in gold futures to put its idle gold assets to use. If allowed, the Tirupati temple could emerge as biggest online traders in gold futures.
According to informal estimates, the temple trust owns more than 8,000 kg of gold ornaments, studded with precious stones.
Several other temples with substantial gold reserves are seriously considering gold futures, according to a broking firm head.
Notably, the investments of religious trusts have been never been in the public domain. However, after Basel-II norms were implemented in 2009, the income and profitability of a few trusts are now available with credit rating agencies.
