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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (4628)	6/16/1999 4:05:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

ING Barings to return to Indian capital markets with brokerage service (Thursday, June 17, 1999) Salil J Panchal in Mumbai/Business Standard ING Barings is working on its re-entry into the Indian capital markets with its brokerage operations after a gap of nearly 16 months. Steps have now been undertaken to put a research, sales and administration team into place. ING Barings Securities (India) Pvt Ltd, the brokerage arm of ING Barings was amongst the first few foreign institutional investors to have shut shop in India after the Asian crisis. Sources said a compliance officer has also been appointed to work out legal details. Compliance norms at ING Barings Securities (India) Pvt Ltd earlier have been reported to be the toughest among foreign brokerages. Sources confirmed that moves are on to put the brokerage operations into shape though the ING Bank has not finalised the timetable to commence operations. ING Baring Securities (India), the brokerage arm of ING Barings had pulled out of equities/debt, securities trading, GDR mandates, sales and research operations in India and Pakistan due to non-viability of operations in February 1998. A staff of 23, involved in equities, research and sales at Mumbai's ING Baring office had been told to go while the corporate finance team was absorbed by the ING Bank. Baring at present carries out its Asia (including India) dedicated equity research from its Hong Kong office. Its real-estate and other properties continue to be maintained on lease and the two broking cards are also still in possession of the financial services firm, sources said. ING Baring Securities (India) had acquired a BSE brokerage card at a whopping Rs 4.12 crore in December 1995. In addition, a sum of Rs 2.16 crore is lying with the BSE and NSE as deposits. It commenced broking operations on February 5, 1995 at both exchanges. Baring has already shown its seriousness towards the Indian presence by re-emerging with its asset management operations. The AMC, which commenced operations recently, already has a distribution/sales team in place. ''The decision to remove the physical presence from India was largely due to the fact that we have not had profitable operations at the Indian capital markets since we made our presence in 1994,'' Edward Naylor, ING Baring spokesperson had said. The broking house had suffered losses of Rs 3.91 crore till December 1996 in its 1996 balance sheet, within two years of commencing India operations. ING Barings restructuring exercise commenced early February 1998 with the focus to concentrate at those centres where their presence is strong. Thus, while Barings had initially pulled out of India and Pakistan, its presence has been strong in the markets of North Asia, Japan (where it is in the top-10 brokerages), Korea and China.''The market conditions have been difficult in Asia and thus the bank decided to re-focus on its traditional strengths,'' he said.