Real estate MFs to be governed by new norms
Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India is coming out with measures providing more leeway to the mutual funds industry. These include allowing MFs entry into real estate sector and launch of `capital protection' schemes.

Making these announcements at Mutual Fund Summit-2006, organised by CII, the SEBI chairman, M. Damodaran cautioned mutual funds against coming up with new fund offers just for being visible. He said SEBI would not clear applications for new fund offers if the same mutual fund had similar schemes in its portfolio. He said mutual fund trustees would have to certify the new fund offers before filing for SEBI clearance.

Another move being considered by SEBI is to allow mutual funds to launch `capital protection schemes' that guarantee investor's capital. Details regarding this would be announced next month, Damodaran said. This would be another form of assured return scheme, which was discontinued following the collapse of UTI's US-64 scheme. The new scheme will assure protection of the capital invested in the scheme.

He said SEBI is also studying recommendations submitted by the Association of Mutual Funds of India on overseas investments by domestic funds.

Damodaran also questioned the practice of MFs rounding up charges making it higher than the earlier announced figure. He said the instance of an MF player who had stated earlier that it would only charge 2.25 per cent as entry load but later rounded off the figure to 2.30 per cent. Damodaran said the extra money collected will have to be returned to the investors.
Back to News Review index page  

iShares MSCI India debuts on Singapore Stock Exchange
Kolkata: iShares MSCI India, the MSCI India Index tracker ETF, has been listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange with a strong gain. It closed at $3.80, up 2.2 per cent over its opening price of $3.72.

Managed by Barclays Global Investors (BGI), part of Barclays Plc, iShares MSCI India is a sub-fund of the iShares Southeast Asia Trust, which seeks to provide an investment return that corresponds generally to the performance of a diversified portfolio of Indian stocks as measured by the MSCI India Index, through holding Indian Access Products, issued by a connected entity of a registered FII in India as underlying investments.

This open-ended ETF would allow exposure to top Indian stocks without having to own the underlying index components. Traded through brokers, this would be a cheaper alternative to traditional funds for absence of front-loading.
Back to News Review index page  

DLF IPO likely to be delayed
New Delhi: Real estate company DLF's IPO is expected to be slightly delayed and would hit the market around mid-July instead of the company's earlier indicated timeframe of late June and early July.

Sources said that the IPO timing had been delayed in the face of choppy market conditions, senior company officials maintained that the shift was on account of the fact that DLF was still awaiting Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI's) approval on the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP). The company had filed its DRHP with SEBI on May 13 for raising an estimated Rs13,600 crore through public offer. The company proposed to enter the capital markets with an IPO of 20.2 crore equity shares of Rs2 each for cash at a premium to be decided through the 100 per cent book-building process.
Back to News Review index page