Franklin Templeton India AMC wound up six of its debt schemes that had a significant exposure to relatively lower rated bonds, effective from April 23, 2020. It was mainly due to the unprecedented levels of redemptions in these schemes following the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown. This move rattled the investors’ fraternity.
Against this backdrop, we analyzed the portfolio of all debt mutual funds (open-ended and close-ended including FMPs) to understand how their exposure were into the various rated debt instruments. For this, we bifurcated the ratings of the corporate papers that the debt schemes held into ‘AAA/AA+/A1+’ and ‘AA & Below’ (as defined by the SEBI).