Strategic sale of equity least priority - UTI chief

MUMBAI, JULY 17. The Unit Trust of India will sparsely use strategic-sales of its equity holdings in companies to realise value of its holding, the UTI Chairman, Mr. M. Damodaran, said.

``The strategic sale will be the least of our priorities while restructuring the schemes,'' Mr. Damodaran, who took charge on July 15, told reporters after the release of `Mutual fund yearbook-2000' here today.

On July 2, then UTI Chairman, Mr. P. S. Subramanyam, after announcing the decision to freeze sale and repurchases for six months of US-64 units, had said that ``this time will be utilised to divest strategic holdings thereby reducing exposure to the equity to a more reasonable level.''

Mr. Damodaran said review of UTI's working would also cover the investment strategies adopted by the various funds, which were under the wings of country's largest MF.

While working on immediate concerns such as investor confidence and feedback, and the US-64 scheme package for small investors, the UTI management would also work on long term measures to tone up working of organisation, he said.

On the exit route for US-64 investors, he said, ``UTI's concerns were not confined to people holding units up to 3,000. This is one of the steps to strengthen investors confidence.''

``Today might look troublesome but there is merit in staying with the schemes since benefits will follow from our restructuring efforts,'' Mr. Damodaran said. ``Uti does not have intention to swell the corpus of fund and focus will be on improving management of what is with the mutual fund,'' he added.

- PTI

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