Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDFs) can now extend the tenure of their schemes by up to two years with the consent of two-third investors, with market regulator SEBI notifying the changes in its IDF regulations.
The IDFs, which can be set up like mutual funds, can also invest funds collected for their schemes in bonds of public financial institutions and infrastructure finance companies.
Notifying various amendments to its IDF regulations, SEBI said that such investments can be done only if the Asset Management Company (AMC) is unable to find the core assets such as debt assets or securitised debt of infrastructure firms, bank loans related to infrastructure for deployment of the amounts of principal.
Extending the time-frame for subscription, SEBI said that the New Fund Offer (NFO) period has been increased to up to 45 days (from up to 15 days) and the Specified Transaction Period (STP) to up to 45 days (from up to 30 days), SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) said in a notification dated April 16, 2013.
SEBI said that tenure of the scheme can be extended beyond the original term by up to two years, with the consent of two-thirds of its investors by value.
The regulator said an IDF scheme would be allowed to invest up to 30 per cent of its Assets Under Management (AUM) in assets from the current ceiling of 20 per cent. The new investment limit is subject to the condition that the sponsor/associate retains at least 30 per cent of the assets sold to the IDF till the assets are held in the IDF portfolio.
IDF scheme’s investments in instruments, irrespective of rating, of a single issuer are restricted to 30 per cent of net assets.
In case of unrated or below investment grade assets, overall investments of the scheme are restricted to 30 per cent of the net assets, which is extendable to 50 per cent with the prior approval of the Boards of Trustee and AMC.
The regulator said: “Infrastructure debt fund schemes may raise monies through private placement of units.”
Also, private placement to less than 50 investors has been allowed as an alternative, subject to approval by the trustees and the board of the asset management company.
In case of private placement, MFs would only have to file a placement memorandum with Sebi instead of an SID (Scheme Information Document) and a KIM (Key Information Memorandum).
However, all other conditions applicable to IDFs offered through an NFO like kind of investments and investment restrictions would be applicable to IDFs offered through private placement.
The regulator has also widened the definition of strategic investors to include systemically important non-banking finance companies registered with the Reserve Bank and Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) registered with SEBI.
