Morgan Stanley to return
Mumbai: Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund is among the final bidders for Standard Chartered's mutual fund business, and is in the process of recruiting staff. It is also in talks with leading distributors for reviving its operations.
It is also said that Narayan Ramachandran at present based in Singapore would be re-locating to India to head Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Ramachandran was co-head of global emerging markets (equity) and is an old hand at Morgan Stanley, with 10 years in the firm.

Morgan was among the first private-sector entrants into the mutual fund business in the country and its first and the only fund scheme, Morgan Stanley Growth Fund (MSGF), launched in June 1994, raised close to Rs1,000 crore, a big sum at that time, on account of its "first come, first served" clause. However the fund house failed to keep up the performance even in line with the indices in the initial years.

The Nimesh Kampani-owned JM Financial and Morgan Stanley have been running their asset management operations independently, though they have joint ventures for all other financial services.

Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm, and a market leader in securities, investment management, and credit services.
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Sebi promises action against cos not complying with Clause 49
Mumbai: Stock exchanges would take action against some big companies that are not complying with the Clause 49 regulations before the end of the year, said M Damodaran, chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

The Sebi chief hoped that action by stock exchanges would put pressure on managements of companies from international investors and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with the clause.

The Clause 49 rules that became effective from January 1, 2006, seek to bring about an all-round enhancement in corporate governance standards through greater independence of board of directors, a code of conduct for board members, larger role of audit committee, enhanced disclosures, greater accountability for CEO and CFO, among other things.

Damodaran said the private sector looked to be more affirmative in implementing the norms of the clause, while the public sector entities were found to be slow in this regard.

Damodaran did not name any company or the number of companies that are yet to comply with the clause.
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Birlasoft introduces wealth management product
New Delhi: Birlasoft, the IT subsidiary of the C.K. Birla group has launched its wealth management product, Birlasoft Advisor +, targeted at financial advisors to provide clients with analysis specific to their individual portfolio.

According to the company banks cater to retail customers and HNIs. But for the mid-segment market the alternatives in the developing countries are not as matured as in the developed markets. The product will profile its customers, assess their risk profile, perform a portfolio analysis and provide them with necessary recommendations. The software can also monitor the proportion between equity and mutual funds and recommend to the client if it needs rebalancing. It will use graphs and pie charts to detail asset allocation and the performance of individual portfolio vis-a vis the market. While it is priced at $5000-10,000 per wealth manager in India, the cost per licence in Asia Pacific countries would be around $10,000.

The company expects direct revenue of 1-2 million by licence selling and close to $5 million globally by indirect selling in the first year. The company is currently focussing on markets in India, Asia Pacific countries and the US. The product will be officially launched in Singapore next month.
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Sagar Cements plans pref offer
Hyderabad: The board of directors of Sagar Cements has decided to issue 18,50,000 convertible warrants of Rs82 each on a preferential basis to identified persons in the promoter group subject to obtaining approvals of shareholders and regulatory authorities. Each warrant of Rs82 would be converted into one equity share of Rs10 each at a premium of Rs72 per share within an aggregate time period of 18 months from the date of allotment.

The issue of warrants is aimed at raising funds to part finance the proposed expansion programme, which would increase the clinker capacity of the plant from the present level of 5.5 lakh tonnes per annum to 20 lakh tpa and of cement capacity from 3 lakh tpa to 21.5 lakh tpa, the company informed the stock exchanges.
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Voltamp Transformers IPO oversubscribed
Mumbai: The initial public offering (IPO) of Voltamp Transformers was subscribed 17.65 times at the close of issue. Bids were received across the price band of Rs295 - Rs345 with a face value of Rs10 per share. Bids received added up to 8.6 crore equity shares, as against the issue size of 48.8 lakh equity shares.

Most of the bids came from institutional investors, which was subscribed by over 25 times. The retail portion was subscribed only six times showing lack of interest in the segment, while non-institutional investors' portion was subscribed over 23 times.
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