Franklin Templeton to pay ` 9,122 cr to investors in 20 days: Apex Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Rs 9,122 crore be disbursed within three weeks to the unit holders of Franklin Templeton’s six mutual fund schemes which are proposed to be wound up. Templeton had shut down last year during the coronavirus lockdown.

A bench of Justices S A Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna said that the disbursal of money would be done in proportion to unit holders' interest in the assets.

"This money is cash-ready with Franklin Templeton," said the Supreme Court, directing SBI Mutual Funds, as the intermediaries, to distribute the amount among unit holders of the USbased company. The court also gave the parties liberty to move applications in case of any difficulty arising out of the process.

The voting with regard to winding up of Franklin Templeton’s six mutual fund schemes had taken place in the last week of December and it has been approved by the majority of unit holders.

The apex court is hearing an appeal filed by Franklin Templeton against the High Court's order which stopped the fund house from winding up its debt fund schemes without prior consent of the investors.

On December 7, 2020, Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund had said it has sought consent of the unitholders for the orderly winding up of the six fixed income schemes.

Till November 27, 2020, the six schemes had received total cash flows of Rs 11,576 crore from maturities, pre-payments and coupon payments since April 24 last year.

The cash available stands at Rs 7,226 crore as of November 27, 2020, for the four cash positive schemes, subject to fund running expenses.