The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has no direct exposure to the Adani Group, said a person familiar with the development, adding that investments by the retirement fund body are completely secure. “The EPFO does not have any investments in the Adani Group either on the equity or the debt side,” said the source.

This would come as some relief to the near 68 million subscribers of the EPFO.

The EPFO, the country’s second largest fund manager, had total investments of over Rs 11 trillion as on March 31, 2022. Of this, 18% was invested in Central government securities and 42.7% was invested in state development loans. The retirement fund manager had also invested 5.1% of its investible corpus in bonds of private sector companies, while 9.24% was invested in exchange traded funds (ETFs).

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“The EPFO does not have direct play in equities but only invests in exchange traded funds. For the last few years, it had also stopped investing in corporate bonds by private companies after the default by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services in 2018,” the source further said, adding that it was only recently that the organisation had started investing in paper by the private sector.

The retirement fund manager can invest up to 5% of its annual incremental deposits in commercial paper floated by corporates. It can also invest between 5% to 15% of its annual incremental deposits in equities and related investments, and prefers to invest in ETFs.

However, even in the past, EPFO subscribers were not impacted due to investments in IL&FS, Dewan Housing Finance and Reliance Capital that went into default.

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Previously, Life Insurance Corporation, India’s largest fund manager, had clarified that its exposure in the Adani Group, as on date, is 0.975% of its total assets under management at book value. It has stressed that policyholders will not be impacted.

Adani Group has 10 listed firms. Its shares have faced a rout in the markets following a scathing report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research. The group has 10 listed companies.