At least a couple of public sector banks, which are shareholders in UTI Mutual Fund may sell their stake in the oldest mutual fund. This will be part of these banks efforts to raise capital and exit non-core businesses. Three public sector banks – State Bank of India, Punjab National bank and Bank of Baroda – jointly hold 55.5% stake in UTI Mutual Fund. Life Insurance Corp and a unit of T Rowe Price Group hold the rest. This has been confirmed by an official of the finance minister, but he did not specify which of these banks would disinvest the stake. UTIMF, which currently has more than Rs 1 lakh crore of assets under management, was carved out of the erstwhile Unit Trust of India (UTI) under the Unit Trust of India (Transfer of undertaking & Repeal) Act 2002 passed by the Parliament, which paved the way for the bifurcation of UTI into Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) and UTI Mutual Fund (UTIMF).
