Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund has issued a notice to investors to conduct e-voting on the winding up of six debt schemes frozen on 23 April due to redemption pressure. Unitholders will have to decide between giving consent to the winding-up decision or withholding it and letting the schemes reopen. In October, the Karnataka High Court had ruled that unitholders’ consent is required for winding up the schemes. Franklin Templeton appealed against this decision in the Supreme Court which on 3 December had asked Franklin Trustees to proceed with voting to get unitholders’ consent.

According to the notice, e-voting will be held from 9 am on 26 December till 6 pm on 28 December. This will be followed by a meeting of unitholders through video conferencing on 29 December. Separate meetings will be held throughout the day on 29 December for each scheme alongside which e-voting will be permitted, starting with Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund from 9 am to 10.30 am. An email from KFintech (formerly Karvy) which is a mutual fund registrar and transfer agent (RTA) will be sent to unitholders with a username and password. Unitholders can then proceed to evoting.kfintech.com to cast their vote. If unitholders already have a username and password with KFintech, the same can be used for the Franklin vote. The principle of one unit holder one vote will be followed. Unitholders can use the e-voting credentials to join the virtual meeting on 29 December at emeetings.kfintech.com. Unitholders can request to speak at the meeting by providing their folio number/DP ID/client ID and mobile number in the window provided. Permission to speak will be provided on a first come first serve basis.

There are approximately 3 lakh unitholders in the six wound up Franklin Templeton schemes with an AUM of around Rs 26,000 crore. Out of the 300,000 unitholders in the six schemes, 190,000 have investments below Rs 2 lakh, the Franklin Templeton petition in the Supreme Court stated.

Franklin India Credit Risk Fund has a lower cash level of 14 per cent of assets. In the case of Franklin India Income Opportunities Fund and Franklin India Short Term Income Plan, there is outstanding borrowing at 18.02 per cent and 1.03 per cent of assets respectively. The differing cash levels will affect how soon investors will receive their money in each scheme.