Debt investors feel the pinch after Franklin fiasco highlights risks

Existing investors need to scrutinise portfolios carefully, new ones should take expert help

The closure of six debt funds by Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) has shown that fund managers may be taking more risks with investors’ money than the latter had bargained for. Portfolios of shorter-duration funds have been found to hold lower-rated papers. And investors have discovered that the promise of liquidity in an open-end fund could be broken when the going gets tough. 

Hereafter, investors may turn more appreciative of the humble bank fixed deposit (FD). When a bank makes a loan and it goes bad, the FD investor is not immediately affected (he suffers only if his bank is