New Delhi: Amid strong opposition from trade unions, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has shortlisted seven private sector firms to manage its large corpus of Rs 2,40,000 crore. The private asset management companies joining the race to bag the mammoth provident fund business include Reliance, HDFC, ICICI Prudential, Templeton, HSBC and the Tatas.

A UTI arm, State Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank are the only public sector entities keen on the PF business against the minimum of three slots for the fund managers. "If we limit the business to the PSU players, where will the competition come from," asked an official.

Ten firms have cleared the technical bids while the financial bids would be opened next week, he said. The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) would take the final call notwithstanding opposition from trade unions.

The entire EPFO corpus is presently being managed by SBI On top of Rs 240,000 crore, an incremental deposit of Rs 25,000 crore comes year year. According to estimates, 70 to 75 per cent of EPFO's deposits are invested in the Special Deposit Schemes (SDS)of government earning interest of 8 per cent since 2002.

The estimated earning of EPFO during 2008-09 would be about Rs 10,552 crore. For maintaining 8.5 per cent interest rate for this fiscal as well, the EPFO management would have to make up a deficit of Rs 139 crore.
Source : PTI