Your PF savings could be with Adani

The Board will begin its two-day meeting on Monday to discuss higher salary-linked pension, FY23 interest rates and annual financial estimates, according to reports.

Hyderabad: Did you know that the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), which manages career savings of 27.73 crore Indians, continues to invest in Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports even after the conglomerate’s stocks crashed after the Hindenburg Research report.

According to a report published by The Hindu on Monday, the EPFO will continue to invest in Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited till September, unless the Central Board of Trustees, which manages EPFO, decides against it.

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The Board will begin its two-day meeting on Monday to discuss higher salary-linked pension, FY23 interest rates and annual financial estimates, according to reports. The proceedings of India’s largest retirement fund will be closely tracked as they affect millions of people.

The EPFO invests 15 percent of its corpus into exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, linked to Nifty 50 and the Sensex, reported The Hindu. The retirement fund body has also set aside 85% of its investment in companies into exchange-traded funds tracking Nifty 50.

As of March 2022, the EPFO had invested Rs 1.57 lakh crore in exchange-traded funds. The social security body made another investment of Rs.8,000 crore in the financial year 2022-’23, The Hindu said in its report, while a few other reports indicated that what portion of these investments into exchange-traded funds have gone into Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited. The investments made are likely to have gone sour as shares of all companies of the conglomerate witnessed heavy losses since January 24, when Hindenburg Research released its controversial report.

As of March 24, the shares of Adani Enterprises were down by over 49 percent from the price level at which it was included in the NSE Nifty 50 in September. It was down 58.5% below its 52-week high level of Rs.4,190 in December 2022.

The Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited stock has fallen about 19% since the beginning of 2022, and had tanked by 35% from its 52-week high of Rs 987.80 in September, according to reports.

The Hindu quoted EPFO trustees saying they were not aware about the fund’s exposure to Adani stocks. The matter is likely to be on agenda at the two-day meeting of the EPFO board, according to the newspaper.