The unitholders of the 6 schemes in Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund have voted in favour of winding up the six debt schemes. The verdict was revealed in the observers’ report submitted before the Supreme Court (SC) today.
In each of the 6 schemes, more than 90% of the unitholders voted in favour of the wind-up. Sources suggest the SC will next meet on January 25, 2020, to give directions on how the funds in these 6 schemes should be paid back to the unitholders. The SC suggested that prima facie, they feel that they should not stop the disbursement of funds at this stage.
The six shut schemes of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund have received Rs 13,789 crore from maturities, pre-payments and coupon payments since these were shut in April last year.
Five of these six schemes are now cash positive. The cash available in these five schemes stood at Rs 9,190 crore as of January 15, 2020. The final cash available for distribution will be subject to some fund-running expenses.
A spokesperson of Franklin Templeton MF said, "We are thankful to our unitholders for voting overwhelmingly in favour of the orderly winding up in all 6 schemes. We deeply appreciate the support of our investors and partners and hope to commence distribution of investment proceeds at the earliest, subject to the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the next hearing scheduled to be held on 25th January 2021."
The voting was held between December 26, 2020, and December 28, 2020. Unitholders were also allowed to vote during a video conference with trustees on December 29, 2020. SEBI had appointed the former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) T S Krishnamurthy as the ‘observer’ in e-voting of the six debt schemes of Franklin Templeton MF. The result of the e-voting was presented before the SC in a sealed cover along with the report of the former CEC.
