In its latest circular, the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has issued a mechanism for monitoring compliance with minimum investment threshold under Specialized Investment Funds (SIF).
SIFs are a new category that lets mutual funds launch advanced strategies through open-ended, close-ended or interval schemes. To participate, each investor must keep at least Rs 10 lakh invested at all times.
For the purpose of SIF, the ‘active breach’ shall mean fall in the aggregate value of an investor’s total investment across all investment strategies of SIF, below the minimum investment threshold of Rs 10 lakh, on account of any transactions (i.e. redemption, transfer, sale etc.) initiated by the investor.
According to the market regulator’s circular, in case of any active breach of the minimum investment threshold by an investor, including through transactions on stock exchanges or off-market transfers, all units of such investors held across investment strategies of the concerned SIF shall be frozen for debit.
Additionally a notice of 30 calendar days shall be given to such investors to rebalance the investments in order to comply with the minimum investment threshold.
The circular further stated that in case an investor rebalances his/her investments in SIF within the notice period of 30 calendar days, the units of SIF of such investor shall be unfreezed, and no further action shall be taken with regard to compliance with minimum investment threshold.
On the other hand, in case the investor fails to rebalance the investments within the aforesaid 30 calendar day period, the frozen units shall be automatically redeemed by the AMC, at the applicable net asset value (NAV) of the next immediate business day after the 30th calendar day of the notice period.
SEBI has asked asset management companies (AMCs), registrars, depositories, stock exchanges, and clearing corporations to put systems in place immediately to monitor these thresholds daily.