At least four fund houses having exposure to Essel Group companies have received a part of their dues, multiple sources aware of the development told Cafemutual. The four fund houses are Aditya Birla Sun Life MF, HDFC MF, ICICI Prudential MF and Kotak MF.
Recently, DSP MF and IDBI MF have also received their pending dues from DHFL.
With Rs.760 crore, ABSL MF received the highest sum among these four fund houses. Morningstar data shows that as on July 2019, the fund house had an exposure of over Rs.2,800 crore to the Essel Group companies.
ICICI Prudential MF received Rs.434 crore of its Rs.739 crore exposure to the Zee group companies. The sum amounts to nearly 60% of their exposure and was the highest in terms of percentage of the outstanding sum.
Third in the list is Kotak Mutual Fund, which has received Rs.208 crore out of its Rs.395 crore exposure to the Zee group promoters.
While these three fund houses confirmed this development, HDFC MF has declined to comment. The fund house is said to have received Rs.580 crore from the group.
The Zee group repaid these dues to its lender after it raised Rs 4,200 crore by selling 11% in Zee Entertainment to global fund Invesco Oppenheimer last month.
Data compiled by Morningstar shows that, apart from these fund houses, three other fund houses - Franklin Templeton MF, SBI MF and UTI MF have an exposure to Zee group companies as on July 2019. Cafemutual could not confirm if these fund houses also received any dues.
Joydeep Sen, debt expert and founder of wiseinvestor.in, feels that all fund houses will get their due, as this was the first-tranche of payment by the Essel group. In future, the group may take similar measures to repay its lenders.
