Crashes let big FIIs grab shares worth Rs676cr

Jitters in overseas markets sent the domestic bourses crashing twice in the past eight days, but foreign investors were busy grabbing stocks here seeing attractive buying opportunities after the 1,000-point plunge.

Some big names of the FII clan, including Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, purchased stocks worth over Rs 676 crore between July 27 and August 1, when the market recorded its two biggest crashes of this fiscal.

Interestingly, most purchases were recorded on these two days only, even as the overall market sentiment was bearish following the 542 and 615-point fall in the benchmark Sensex.

An analysis of the bulk and block deals recorded on the stocks exchanges shows that foreign funds purchased shares worth Rs 676.32 crore in the period when the Sensex tanked over 1,000 points in two routs between July 27 and August 1.

Besides, the funds are believed to have purchased additional stocks in smaller quantities, but their exact estimates could not be known. Bulk deal refers to trading in a company's shares for over 0.5% of the total shares of the firm listed on the exchange.

RIL may become India's first $100 bn mkt cap firm

MUMBAI: Reliance Industries, India's most valued firm, may become the first in the country to achieve a market capitalisation of $100 billion, international brokerage and equity research major Morgan Stanley said on Tuesday.

Morgan Stanley's India-based analysts said in a research note sent to the firm's institutional clients that they were raising the consolidated earnings forecasts for RIL in the current and next fiscals.

They also revised upward their one-year price target for RIL shares, while projecting a 35 per cent surge from the current levels in its "base case" scenario.

Morgan Stanley further said in "bull case" scenario, the shares could rise by about 37 per cent, which when translated into market capitalisation would amount to over $100 billion.

Read more at Economic Times

Investment bankers pay heavy price for China’s broking pie

Overseas banks keen for a piece of China’s red-hot brokerage sector will have to swallow some rich prices to buy into domestic securities firms, which are in no hurry to make deals as they focus on their own share listings. But for investment banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan, a strategic partnership with a local securities house is a must in the long run, if they want to cash in on China’s rapidly growing stock markets, whose capitalisation has reached nearly 20 trillion yuan ($2.65 trillion), exceeding Hong Kong.

Besides Citi and JPMorgan, banks including HSBC and Credit Suisse are shopping for Chinese partners. Even Morgan Stanley, which launched China’s first such investment banking joint venture in 1995, is eyeing its second deal, banking sources said. “You cannot ignore China if you want to explore new profit streams in emerging markets,” said Philip Leung, a Shanghai-based partner for Ernst & Young.

Mainland China is on track to overtake Hong Kong, as Asia’s biggest centre for initial public offerings this year. Analysts have said, they expected fund-raising by Chinese firms via domestic IPOs to hit 400 billion yuan this year, up from 165 billion yuan in 2006 as Beijing encourages more Hong Kong-listed firms to sell shares at home. Most overseas banks will miss out on the current IPO boom — except for Goldman Sachs, UBS and Morgan Stanley, which established partnerships in China when the industry was still mired in a severe downturn.

Read more in The Economic Times