Overseas exposure of India MFs rised amid pandemic

Mumbai, Sep 15 Indian mutual fund companies are increasingly going global with their share of foreign assets and liabilities seeing substantial jump in last one year.

According to a RBI survey, foreign liabilities of MF companies stood at $14.5 billion in March 2021, an over 50 per cent jump over previous year, mainly on account of units issued by MFs to non-residents.

But, a bigger gain accrued in the foreign assets of MF companies due to rise in equity security and other foreign assets during the year and it stood at $2.9 billion at end-March 2021.

On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank released the results of the 2020-21 round of the Survey of Foreign Liabilities and Assets of the Mutual Fund (MF) Companies.

The data also said that the UAE, the UK, the US, and Singapore together accounted for nearly 45 per cent of the total MF units held by non-residents, both at face value as well as at market value.

Overseas equity investments of MF companies were largely concentrated in the US and Luxembourg, it showed.

Foreign liabilities of AMCs stood at $5.7 billion in March 2021 whereas their foreign assets were much lower at US $0.1 billion.

Non-residents in Japan and the UK together held nearly 89 per cent of FDI of the AMCs.