Case Study on Corporate Governance: UTI Scam

Of all the recent encounters of the Indian public with the much-celebrated forces of the market, the Unit Trust’s US-64 debacle is the worst. Its gravity far exceeds the stock market downswing of the mid-1990s, which wiped out Rs. 20,000 crores in savings. The debacle is part of the economic slowdown which has eliminated one million jobs and also burst the information technology (IT) bubble. This has tragically led to suicides by investors. And then suspension of trading in US-64made the hapless investors more dejected at the sinking of this “super-safe” public sector instrument that had delivered a regular return since 1964. There is a larger lesson in the US-64 debacle for policies towards public savings and public sector undertakings (PSUs). The US-64 crisis is rooted in plain mismanagement. US-64 was launched as a steady income fund. Logically, it should have invested in debt, especially low-risk fixed-income government bonds. Instead, its managers increasingly invested in equities, with high-risk speculative returns. In the late 1980s UTI was “politicised” with other financial institutions (FIs) such as LIC and GIC, and made to invest in certain favoured scrips. By the mid-1990s, equities exceeded debt in its portfolio. The FIs were also used to “boost the market” artificially as an “endorsement” of controversial economic policies. In the past couple of years, UTI made downright imprudent but heavy investments in stocks from Ketan Parekh’s favourite K-10 portfolio, such as Himachal Futuristic, Global Tele and DSQ. These “technology” investments took place despite indications that the “technology boom” had ended. US-64 lost half its Rs. 30,000 crore portfolio value within a year. UTI sank Rs. 3,400 crores in just six out of a portfolio of 44 scrips. This eroded by 60 percent. Early that year, US-64’s net asset value plunged below par (Rs.10). But it was re-purchasing US-64 above Rs. 14! Today, its NAV stands at Rs. 8.30 – a massive loss for 13 million unit-holders.It is inconceivable that UTI made these fateful investment decisions on its own. According to insiders, the Finance Ministry substantially influenced them: all major decisions need high-level political approval. Indeed, collusion between the FIs, and shady operators like Harshad Mehta, was central to the Securities Scam of 1992. The Joint Parliamentary Committee’s report documents this. In recent months, the Finance Ministry became desperate to reverse the post-Budget market downturn. UTI’s misinvestment now coincided with the global technology “meltdown.” US-64 crashed. UTI chairman resigned. Although culpable, he was probably a scapegoat too. The Ministry has kept a close watch on UTI, especially since 1999.The US-64 debacle, then, is not just a UTI scam. It is a governance scam involving mismanagement by a government frustrated at the failure of its macroeconomic calculations. This should have ensured the Finance Minister’s exit in any democracy which respects parliamentary norms. There are larger lessons in the UTI debacle. If a well-established, and until recently well-managed, institution like UTI cannot safeguard public savings, then we should not allow the most precious of such savings – pensions – to be put at risk. Such risky investment is banned in many selfavowedly capitalist European economies. In India, the argument acquires greater force given the poorly regulated, extremely volatile, stock market– where a dozen brokers control 90 percent of trade. Yet, there is a proposal by the Finance Ministry to privatize pensions and provident funds. Basically, the government, deplorably, wants to get rid of its annual pension obligation of Rs. 22,000 crores.