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SEBI chief lashes out at MFs for unfriendly investor practices
Mumbai: The SEBI chief has lashed out at the mutual fund industry for adopting investor unfriendly practices. The market regulator has also asked the Association of Mutual Fund of India (AMFI) to focus on investors and expand its reach, especially in rural areas.

"Rebates and incentives to distributors were being used to drive new schemes, at times at the cost of investors interest," the SEBI Chairman, M. Damodaran, said addressing a mutual fund summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry here today.

He said Asset Management Companies (AMC) were churning their investment portfolio excessively, raising questions for whose benefit such activities were being done. The SEBI Chief said issues such as miscommunication and excessive churning of portfolios have been taken up with AMFI and mutual fund companies would have to change the way they market their new schemes.

The SEBI Chairman was also critical about a large number of new schemes or IPOs being launched by mutual funds. "Some of the mutual fund houses are using the term initial public offering (IPO) or at par issue for their new schemes to lure investors. This is an attempt to lure investors to subscribe to their issues by misleading them," he said.

AMFI should not take an infinite time to come up with suggestions and solutions for improving the mutual fund industry practices but should be prompt in taking up issues concerning investors, he added.
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SEBI tells MFs to calculate portfolio limit on daily basis
Kolkata: The SEBI has stipulated that the average net assets of a scheme managed by a mutual fund will be calculated daily and also that any breach of the 25 per cent holding limit by an investor will have to be determined.

The regulator has informed the MFs that at the end of a quarter, the average of daily holding by each unit holder will have to be computed in order to determine whether such an investor has breached the limit over that quarter.

The regulator has written to AMFI with reference to its earlier circular on the matter. The circular will be applicable at the portfolio level, it said.

"If there is a breach of limit by any investor over the quarter, a rebalancing period of one month would be allowed and thereafter the investor who is in breach of the rule shall be given 15 days' notice to redeem exposure over the 25 per cent limit," the SEBI note said.

In case of failure, the investor concerned will redeem exposure over the limit within the aforesaid 15 days. There will be automatic redemption by the mutual fund.
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ACCI survey: India Inc. wants Clause 49 deadline extended
New Delhi: Seventy per cent of the country's top Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors want the Securities and Exchange Board of India to extend the Clause 49 deadline by at least six months as it is difficult to put in place independent directors by December 31, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry Survey of 200 CEOs and MDs.

Most of the CEOs and MDs have also said that they are more in agreement with the JJ Irani Committee's recommendation of having one-third of the board members as independent directors (IDs) rather than the SEBI guidelines, which require 50 per cent of the board to be represented by IDs.

As per the listing agreement, IDs should comprise 50 per cent of the board strength if the Chairman is an Executive Director and one-third if he is a non-Executive Director.
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JM Mutual launches 'Emerging Leaders Fund'
Mumbai: The JM Mutual Fund has announced the launch of its new scheme, `JM Emerging Leaders Fund', which will seek long-term capital appreciation from investment in a portfolio of stocks across the market capitalisation range.

The scheme will be open for public subscription from June 16 to July 4.

The portfolio may include companies operating in emerging sectors of the economy or those that exhibit the potential to become leaders. Speaking on the scheme, JM Financial Group officials said that the objective of the scheme was to invest in companies that will be bluechips of the future.
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Grant Thornton in talks with companies for overseas listing
Mumbai: International accounting and advisory firm, Grant Thornton, is in talks with several mid-cap Indian companies in order to help them list on international stock exchanges in countries such as the US, Singapore, the UK and Canada.

Company officials said they are in touch with five companies and a couple of overseas listings were possible soon. They however declined to name the companies. Grant Thornton is tapping listed as well as unlisted companies. The firm is looking at companies from sectors such as mining, technology and pharmaceuticals for listing.

Officials said the firm is looking at companies with market capitalisation between $50 million and $2 billion for overseas listing.

The exchanges where the firm feels Indian companies should get listed are Sesdaq (Singapore), TSX-V (Canada), Nasdaq and AIM (UK).
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i-flex to issue warrants to GE Capital and IBM Global Services
Mumbai: The board of i-flex Solutions Ltd has approved the issue of warrants or options of up to 0.5 per cent of the share capital to General Electric Capital Corporation.

These warrants and options are convertible at a future date into equal number of equity shares of face value of Rs5 each, a news release said.

The board has also approved the issuance of up to 80,000 warrants or options, convertible at a future date into equal number of equity shares of face value of Rs5 each to IBM Global Services India Pvt Ltd. The exact number of options to be issued to IBM would be decided at a board meeting to be held after the AGM.

General Electric Capital Corporation and i-flex have signed a software licence agreement and related Master Software Implementation and Development Services Agreement and Statements of Work, licensing an enterprise-wide deployment of the Flexcube product suite for use with GE Capital's retail banking operations worldwide.

i-flex Solutions also said that Sicredi of Brazil has selected Flexcube and Reveleus as a key part of the business and technology transformation programme.
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Yes Bank IPO oversubscribed
Mumbai: The initial public offering (IPO) of Yes Bank was subscribed 8.27 times on the first day, according to the NSE Web site.

Cumulative bids were received for a total of 57.86 crore shares against the issue size of seven crore shares. A total of 68.34 lakh bids were received at the cut-off price.

The price band for the 100 per cent book-built issue is between Rs38 and Rs45 and the IPO closes on June 21.

DSP Merill Lynch and Enam Financial Consultants are the book-running lead managers to the issue.
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MSP Steel to raise Rs.16 crore through public issue
Mumbai: MSP Steel and Power Ltd is entering the capital market to raise Rs16 crore through a public issue of 1.6 crore equity shares of Rs10 each at par. The proceeds of the issue would be used to fund its integrated steel plant in Chhattisgarh.

The issue opens on June 20 and closes on June 24.

The company is setting up a 1.92-lakh tonnes per annum sponge iron plant along with a 24-MW captive power plant, 95,109-TPA steel melt shop with billet caster and a 80,000-TPA re-rolling mill with Thermex TMT plant at a cost of Rs124 crore, company officials said.
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Orchid Chemicals opts for $100mn GDR issue
Chennai: Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals proposes to raise $100 million through an issue of Global Depository Receipts, which is a change of plans from its earlier decision to go for foreign currency convertible bonds of $75 million.

According to company officials part of the funds would be used for retiring some of the relatively high cost debt and the other part for getting into multi-therapeutic areas - non-anti-biotic drugs such as anti-diabetes.

In addition to the GDR issue, Orchid Chemicals intends to issue 25 lakh warrants to the promoters, which are convertible into equity. An employee stock option plan is also on the cards.

To accommodate the GDR, convertible warrants and employees' options, the authorised capital of the company is to be raised to Rs55 crore from Rs45 crore now.

The annual general meeting of the company is to be held on July 18.
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