The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed to ease salary disclosure norms for mutual fund executives amid raising concern from the industry.
In a consultation paper issued on Wednesday, SEBI said the industry had raised concerns that the public disclosure of individual remuneration will expose employees to risks relating to misuse of personal information.
In addition, the mutual fund industry competes for talent with other segments such as Portfolio Management Services (PMS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIF), where similar disclosure requirements are not applicable.
This asymmetry may place asset management company’s (AMCs) at a competitive disadvantage and could have implications for talent retention, it added.
Investors comments on the proposal should be submitted to SEBI by June 30.
The MF industry said investment decisions are typically driven by factors such as scheme performance, risk management, asset allocation, investment strategy and expense ratios.
Individual-level remuneration disclosures may not materially influence such decisions or improve investor outcomes.
Moreover, it said MFs operate as trust structures which are pass-through vehicles, where investors are unitholders rather than shareholders and do not exercise direct ownership rights over the AMC.
Following the industry’s submission, SEBI has proposed that instead of disclosure of individual employee remuneration, AMCs may disclose consolidated remuneration along with the employees count mandated under the disclosure. This will enable unitholders to assess the overall quantum of remuneration at the senior management level.
This apart, MFs have to disclose the salary of CEO, CIO and COO besides top ten employees in terms of remuneration and annual remuneration of all employees whose annual remuneration is over ₹1.02 crore or monthly remuneration of ₹8.5 lakh, if employed for part of the year.
SEBI said that, considering that investment decision-making for each scheme rests primarily with the respective fund managers, there may be merit in providing visibility into their remuneration.
SEBI has proposed that scheme-level consolidated disclosure of total remuneration paid to fund managers at scheme-level may be made available upon specific request of unitholders and may be limited to the schemes in which the investor has made an investment.
Abhishek Paliwal, Partner, King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates and Attorneys, said the proposed changes represent a notable shift in the regulatory approach to transparency and governance in the MF sector.
The proposal raises important questions regarding the extent to which investors can effectively evaluate management accountability without visibility into the remuneration of key decision-makers who directly influence investment outcomes and operational strategy.
For retail investors, transparency is a cornerstone of trust in the mutual fund ecosystem. Any revised framework should ensure that the reduction in individual-level disclosures does not inadvertently weaken governance standards or diminish investor confidence, he added.