Franklin Templeton winding up six of its debt funds

Claiming its first victims in the mutual fund industry, the ongoing Covid-19 crisis has hit six schemes of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. In an unprecedented development for open-ended funds, the fund house has announced voluntary wind-up of six schemes namely - Franklin India Low Duration Fund, Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund, Franklin India Short Term Income Plan, Franklin India Credit Risk Fund, Franklin India Dynamic Accrual Fund and Franklin India Income Opportunities Fund. What has happened? Effective April 24, 2020, the wind-up comes in the wake of the theatrical fall in liquidity across the bond market caused by the pandemic and the consequential lockdown of the Indian economy. Citing the evident Covid-19 related market dislocation impacting the Indian credit markets, Franklin Templeton made it clear that the decision to close the six yield-oriented schemes is in the best interest of investors. According to the fund house, winding up of the above mentioned schemes is the only feasible option to preserve value for unitholders. Consequently, no transactions would now be possible in these schemes and the fund house would dispose-off assets and the realized value will be distributed to all existing unitholders in proportion to their respective claims over the coming months. Why was such an eventuality necessary? The fund house sent out communications to investors explaining the rationale behind this unexpected announcement. Franklin Templeton said that despite active intervention from RBI, yields were rising coupled by lower trading volumes in the bond markets. Further, amidst the threat of Covid-19, the rising uncertainty and risk aversion, various mutual funds were faced with a liquidity crunch. Templeton clarified that while its schemes were able to adhere to all redemption obligations during the initial phase of the crisis, however, unprecedented situation has put these schemes under severe stress and the fund h