SEBI may cap listing price
Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is thinking of putting a price ceiling on the day a company's scrip is first listed to prevent prices of newly-listed shares from rising beyond a certain limit on a day when circuit filters are not in place.

Circuit filters imposed to prevent shares from rising or falling beyond a prescribed limit, are not imposed the day the shares are listed to allow for price discovery, which ensures that a reference price is set for circuit filters.

At present, a dummy circuit filter is in place, under which stock exchanges informally inform the regulator when prices of a certain scrip rise more than 100 per cent above their subscription price on listing day. However, the lack of a formal price ceiling or circuit filter has resulted in the prices of many company stocks rising exorbitantly on listing day.

The regulator is likely to ask stock exchanges to impose a price ceiling even for those companies that are relisting (i.e. after they are de-listed from regional stock exchanges) on the main stock exchanges. The last price on a regional stock exchange could be treated as the base for fixing the price ceiling, sources familiar with the developments said.
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ABN Amro introduces global realty fund
Mumbai: ABN-Amro Mutual Fund has filed its papers with Sebi for a scheme that will invest in real estate companies and leading property companies worldwide.

The ABN-Amro Global Property (India) Equity Fund will invest in foreign equity and equity-related securities through ABN-Amro's Luxembourg-based ABN-Amro Global Property Equity Fund. The latter is a diversified, actively managed fund mainly investing in realty companies and top property companies across the globe.

Last year, the market regulator further liberalised rules to allow mutual funds to launch schemes that will invest in overseas equity or equity-oriented schemes, in a move to provide more diversified products to the Indian retail investors.

Following this, Principal PNB Mutual tweaked its existing scheme to invest in equities of emerging markets while Franklin Templeton launched a scheme that would partly invest in overseas equity. But, no fund house launched a scheme for overseas realty companies. The move by ABN-Amro Mutual Fund coincides with Sebi's own plan to allow India-registered mutual funds to launch real estate funds.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allows resident Indians to invest $50,000 per annum overseas. Analysts said, the ABN-Amro scheme was aimed at this segment.
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Futures contract in cement coming
Mumbai: The National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) is planning to launch a futures contract in cement according to NCDEX managing director P H Ravikumar.

He said cement prices were rising and a futures contract will provide a mechanism for better price realisation. During the past one year, cement prices have shot up by 18-20 per cent from Rs185-190 for a 50-kg bag to Rs225.

Currently, prices in the north and west are around Rs225 per 50 kg bag in south it is around Rs200.
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PFC to establish India Power Fund
Mumbai: The state-run Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has announced that it will be one of the major lending institutions for the power sector during the capacity addition of 11th plan. It will raise necessary funds in and outside India through different instruments. PFC also said it would soon expedite the process to establish the India Power Fund (IPF) with the initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore. PFC will pick up last mile equity in various projects so that the developers could achieve an early financial closure.

The Oriental Bank of Commerce, Asian Development Bank and International Finance Corporation and couple of other Indian banks and financial institutions has decided to contribute to IPF.
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