Merill Lynch loses Sumeet Puri

Sumeet Puri resigned as head of equity capital markets in India at Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest arranger of share sales in the nation, reported the Economic Times. Puri will leave Merrill by August after 13 years with the New York-based investment bank.

There have been no official statements as of now on this development from Merill Lynch and the reason for quitting, less than five months after he was named to run equities and origination of structured products in India, is not known yet.

Merrill's top executive in India, Amit Chandra, and its head of investment banking Munesh Khanna quit at the end of last year to start buyout funds.

Related Posts:
Merrill names Sumeet Puri as head of India equity capital markets
Ex-Merrill Lynch India i-banking unit head Munesh Khanna starts $300 mn distressed assets PE fund
From DSP ML to Citi: Vikas Khattars big move
Deutsche names Sanjay Sharma head of India equity capital markets

Vineet Vohra to head ING India operations

ING Groep NV's (ING) investment management unit said Wednesday it appointed Vineet Vohra as chief executive of its India operations.

He will take over from Kavita Hurry, who has been chief executive since 2002 but is leaving ING to pursue other interests.

Vohra comes to ING from Citibank N.A., where he helped build the firm's wealth management franchise as regional director and business head for Citibank's Asia Pacific Consumer Investments business.

Lehman completes a Trimurti of senior hires

Lehman Brothers has made the last in a trimurti of senior hires to its Indian investment banking unit with the appointment of a venture capital specialist Jayanta Banerjee to run its private equity business in the country, as reported by Reuters.

Jayanta Banerjee joins from ICICI Ventures where he was a committee member on India’s largest private equity fund, the $810m India Advantage Fund Series 2.

By hiring Banerjee, Lehman has appointed new heads for its three main growth businesses in India this year. In January the bank hired Surojit Shome as head of investment banking before appointing Pankaj Vaish as head of equities and fixed income markets in April. Both were earlier working with Citigroup.

Banerjee will report to Tarun Jotwani, the chief executive of Lehman’s business in India, and Christopher Manning, head of the bank’s Asia investment management division.

Mayfield Fund is building its team in India

Mayfield Fund, which has $2.6 billion under management with investments in high growth companies in the U.S., China and India, announced the addition of Nikhil Khattau and Vikram Godse to its India investment team based in Mumbai, as reported by Finance Asia.

This follows the fund's two direct investments in the past six months in India in Tejas Networks and the Seed Fund. Mayfield's activities in India are being led by the U.S.-based Managing Directors Navin Chaddha and Robin Vasan.

Khattau was earlier the founding chief executive of Sun F&C Asset Management, one of India's first private-sector asset managers, which is now part of the Principal Financial Group.

Godse was a founder of JM Financial Investment Managers, an Indian private equity fund. Before that he worked in India for the investment unit of Cisco and for Infinity Venture Capital, one of India's first venture capital firms.

Mayfield will focus on investments in the consumer services (retail, entertainment and travel), infrastructure (power, roads, buildings and waste disposal), manufacturing and offshore sectors in the country.

From DSP ML to Citi: Vikas Khattars big move

The last couple of years have been exciting for the Investment Banking community to say the least. The action though has not been limited to large ticket deals. One gets to hear about high profile moves every now and then. DSP ML seems to have been affected more than others with movements of Munesh Khanna and Sanjay Sharma.

Vikas Khattar is the latest to make the big move. Citi India has poached Khattar from DSP Merrill Lynch to add strength to its equity capital markets team. He will be joining in as a Director early next month. Khattar is an MBA from IIM Calcutta and an engineer from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science. He was a veteran at DSP Merrill Lynch with 11 years experience.

Citi’s equity capital markets team is headed by another erstwhile DSP Merrill Lynch stalwart, Ravi Kapoor. Kapoor left DSP ML, where he was head of equity origination and capital markets, in April 2005 to kick-start the same business for Citi. Khattar will be part of Kapoor's team, which reports to Pramit Jhaveri, who heads investment banking for Citi in India.

For its part DSP Merrill Lynch is also on a hiring spree since Merrill Lynch bought out its Indian partner in December 2005. DSP is aggressively foraying into new areas including private wealth management, real estate and principal investing and hiring to staff these businesses. Indeed, worldwide Merrill Lynch has been beefing up its global private client non-resident Indian (NRI) business at the cost of Citi and has lured Rahul Malhotra, Inderjeet Hora and Aseem Arora from Citi in the last few months.

Source: Finance Asia

London-based PE fund Promethean Investments initiates Promethean India with the Dabur Group; appoint ex-ITV chairman Peter Burt

Sir Peter Burt, ex-chairman of ITV, will become chairman of Promethean India, a new India-focused private equity fund, a spin-off of the Promethean private equity vehicle run by his son, Michael. The new fund will be listed on London Stock Exchange's AIM market and is understood to have investors such as Bank of Scotland and Alliance Trust. Insinger de Beaufort has been appointed advisor to the company.

Promethean India will become the latest in a string of companies to tap the London markets for cash earmarked for India. It will be run by Mohit Burman, a member of the Dabur Group, which houses the Burman family's business interests, such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and retail.

Mohit's brother, Gaurav, plays a senior role at Promethean Investments in London, and will also be involved in the running of Promethean India, which will be based in offices in Delhi and Mumbai. The fund is understood to have a pipeline of potential deals. It will also target Indian firms in need of operational or financial restructuring and others which are domestically focused but which have potential for international expansion.

Read the article in The Telegraph.

Barclays Capital appoints Sanjay Mathur as Director

The Economic Times reports that Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of global financial group Barclays, has appointed Sanjay Mathur from UBS as Director, Rates Research for its Asian operations (excluding Japan). Mathur would lead the firm's coverage of macro-economic research on the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia and Singapore. Prior to this, Mathur was working as Executive Director in the regional economic team of global financial firm UBS.

Citigroup in talks to buy to hedge fund Old Lane for $600 mn; fund boss Vikram Pandit may get to head Citi’s alternative investments unit

Global banking giant Citigroup is in talks to buy Old Lane, a hedge fund firm co-founded by ex-Morgan Stanley senior executive Vikram Pandit. If such a deal happens, Mr. Pandit would probably be on his way to heading the bank’s alternative investments unit, and probably, also the top job at the world’s largest bank.

The purchase price for Old Lane is estimated to be around $600 mn. Old Lane is thought to have more than $4 bn of assets under management. The alternative investments unit is the smallest of Citigroup's four main businesses. In 2006, profit at the unit fell 11% to $1.28 bn, and revenue dropped 15% to $2.9 bn. The unit at year-end oversaw $49.2 bn of assets, including $10.7 bn of Citigroup's prop money.

Vikram Pandit is a former head of Morgan Stanley's institutional securities division. Once considered a potential successor to former Morgan Stanley chief executive Philip Purcell, Pandit left the investment bank in March 2005 as part of an exodus of senior bankers and traders. He later founded Old Lane with his Morgan Stanley colleagues John Havens and Guru Ramkrishnan.

Read more in The Economic Times article.

Credit Suisse poaches Ritchie Capital senior management for heading Asian private equity ops

Business Standard reports that Credit Suisse has hired Harjit Bhatia from Ritchie Capital to head Credit Suisse Private Equity Asia and has roped in a team of six professionals for the same. The team comprises Hemang Raja, Rakesh Mital, Soma Ghosal Dhar, Isiah Zhang and Imelda Tham. Heath Zarin, who started Credit Suisse’s Asian private equity investment activities, will also be joining the team. Harjit Bhatia, Rakesh Mital, Isiah Zhang and Imelda Tham will be based in Hong Kong, and Hemang Raja and Soma Ghosal will be based in Mumbai.

Harjit Bhatia is joining as managing partner and head of Credit Suisse Private Equity Asia. He was till recently chairman and CEO, Asia Pacific of Ritchie Capital Management in Hong Kong. Hemang Raja and Rakesh Mital are joining as managing directors. Prior to joining Credit Suisse Hemang Raja was the head of India operations for Ritchie Capital. While Rakesh Mital worked closely with Bhatia at Ritchie Capital. Also joining the team are Soma Ghosal Dhar, previously a director at Ritchie Capital in India; Isiah Zhang worked at McKinsey in China prior to joining Ritchie Capital; and Imelda Tham, who worked at the Carlyle Group in Washington DC in real estate acquisitions before Ritchie Capital.

Indian i-banks to fight it out with foreign ones for size and talent

It has now become common knowledge that since it announced its “break-off” with Morgan Stanley, domestic investment banking major JM Financial is aggressively hunting for both size and talent. Having sold its equity broking division for a whopping $445 mn to MS, JM is now flush with funds to afford a local brokerage house to re-build the equity sales and research team. Plans are also afoot to hire around 30 research analysts over the next 12 months. On both these accounts, it will be a rough ride ahead for the venerable institution.

According to an article on The Mint, the Indian investment banking industry is facing a severe talent crunch, with the cream of the lot having been picked up by the foreign investment banks, which are landing up on the Indian corporate shore in droves. The foreign banks have been snatching talent out of the jaws of Indian recruiters, with pay packages comparable to those in other parts of the world. The article goes on to cite instances of Lehman Brothers hiring Gaurav Gupta of NM Rothschild and Blackstone hiring Anup Kapadia from HSBC India, thus highlighting the bitter feud between foreign banks themselves for skilled personnel. Certain firms like Goldman Sachs are calling in Indian expats handling overseas operations to set up and manage the Indian offices.

In all this rush for deals and dealmakers, the only ones who are smiling are the i-bankers themselves, who earlier with a salary of Rs. 8-10 lakhs can now expect the same to go up to around Rs. 35 lakhs. And anyone with an experience of 8 years plus can demand upward of Rs. 2 crores a year!

Tarun Kataria to head HSBC’s India CIB operations

The Economic Times reports that Tarun Kataria, a managing director at HSBC in Hong Kong, will move to India for heading the Indian corporate and investment banking, and capital markets operations of HSBC. Mr. Kataria is an MBA in finance from the Wharton School, and had earlier worked for Merrill Lynch and Chase Manhattan in the United States.

Warburg Pincus appoints former McKinsey executive as MD at Mumbai office

The Economic Times reports that Leo Puri, a former executive at global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has been appointed managing director by Warburg Pincus for its India office. Mr. Puri is a post-graduate in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University, and was a co-leader of the financial services practice in Asia for McKinsey. He will begin at Warburg's New York office in April, and will move to its Mumbai office later. Mr. Puri’s appointment seems to fill in the gap created by ex-MD Pulak Prasad’s exit from Warburg Pincus some time back.

Intel Capital appoints Sudheer Kuppam as MD for Asia region

Sudheer Kuppam, Director of Flash Memory and Semiconductor Sector at Intel, will join Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel, as the Managing Director for India, Japan, Australasia and South-East Asia. He would be based in Bangalore and would be responsible for leading Intel’s investment strategies and expansion plans including placement of the $250 mn Intel Capital India Technology Fund.

Top management re-jig at JM Financial post-Morgan Stanley break-up

Nimesh Kampani, after the separation of his firm JM Financial with JV partner Morgan Stanley, is re-organizing his operations to exploit future opportunities in the fast-growing Indian investment banking industry, with a view to give foreign investment banks, who are opening offices in India, a run for their money. A new management structure is being formalized for the group flagship company JM Financial by Mr. Kampani, who has carved up the operations of JM Financial into seven strategic business units to be managed by independent managing directors.

The investment banking business is split into corporate finance, M&A and global capital markets. Dipti Neelkantan, 48, who joined JM as a research analyst 25 years ago, has recently risen to the rank of MD & COO of the investment banking business. She is in charge of overall operations. Two MDs have been appointed for the corporate finance division, which is scaling up its operations. Nimesh Kampani’s son Vishal Kampani, 30, and BK Bansal, 53, will be heading this division. Adi Patel, 38, has been designated as head of the M&A division, while Atul Mehra, 39, has recently been elevated to the post of MD (global capital markets). Adi Patel, Atul Mehra and BK Bansal have been with JM for more than 15 years.

JM Financial is bringing in talent from outside to run the new-age businesses. Last month, Nityanath Ghanekar, 61, joined as CEO and MD of the mutual-fund business from global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. A few months ago, Dilip Kothari joined JM to head its private equity business from Olympus Capital. Rajeev Chitrabanu, 35, is CEO and MD of the financial services business, which includes wealth management and IPO distribution. Subodh Shinkar, 39, is the new COO of the division.

While Vipin Gupta, 35, is the MD of the fast-growing commodity business, Basant
Agarwal, 40, heads the special situations fund. JM Financial is also planning to create independent divisions for the fixed-income and research portfolios.

Edelweiss to start asset management and NBFC businesses; recruits senior people for the same

Leading domestic investment bank Edelweiss will commence asset management and non-banking financial company (NBFC) businesses by investing a total of Rs. 400 crores in the new ventures. Edelweiss would invest Rs. 300 crores for the NBFC business and another Rs. 100 crores for the asset management business. The NBFC would be looking at mortgage business and other credit instruments. Edelweiss had received in-principal approval from SEBI for the asset management company.

Edelweiss also announced the appointment of senior executives for its new business of NBFC and AMC businesses. R Balakrishnan, who will head the NBFC business, has been appointed executive vice-president of Edelweiss. Mr. Balakrishnan earlier worked as Senior VP & Head of Equity Research at DSP Merrill Lynch. Prior to Edelweiss, he was an independent consultant and part of the senior management team at credit rating agency CRISIL. For the AMC business, Edelweiss appointed Jimmy Patel as the CEO. Patel’s earlier stints include CEO and COO of JM Financial Mutual Fund and with the Principal Group, where he was in-charge of their pension initiative in India. Edelweiss also took on board Peeyoosh Chadda of Barclays as co-head of the AMC business.

Read the Business Standard article.

UTI Mutual Fund poaches top Sundaram BNP Paribas fund manager Anoop Bhaskar

The Times of India reports that Anoop Bhaskar of Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund, and one of the top fund managers in the industry, will join UTI Mutual Fund. Anoop Bhaskar is the head of equities at Chennai-based Sundaram BNP Mutual Fund. He will join UTI Mutual Fund in the same position. Bhaskar is one of the most active, and one of the better-performing fund managers in the Indian mutual fund industry.

Ex-Merrill Lynch India i-banking unit head Munesh Khanna starts $300 mn distressed assets PE fund

Former head of investment banking at Merrill Lynch India Munesh Khanna has raised $300 mn-private equity fund to invest in companies that are distressed or need management help to revive their finances.

Munesh Khanna’s new private equity firm Halcyon Group, has been started along with Narayan Seshadri, ex-head of Andersen Business Consulting in India, and Abhay Soi, who oversaw the financial restructuring group at Ernst & Young. Halcyon will target annual returns of 25%, and would make investments in asset-backed businesses, including textile and paper manufacturers.

Munesh Khanna oversaw the Indian unit of NM Rothschild and worked at Arthur Andersen in India for 17 years before he joined Merrill Lynch. Amit Chandra, his former boss at Merrill Lynch, is also starting a private-equity fund, called New Silk Route Partners.

Read more in the Business Standard article.

Rahul Bajaj buys into privately-held Bajaj holding company Bachhraj

Rahul Bajaj has acquired stake in Bachhraj and Company by buying out minority shareholders SK Birla, CK Birla and Yash Birla. Bachhraj is a privately-held holding company and is a step-down subsidiary of the main holding firm of the Bajaj Group, Bajaj Sevashram. Bachhraj holds a 24.54% stake in Bajaj Hindustan, the sugar company controlled by Shishir Bajaj. Bachhraj also has equity holdings in Bajaj Auto and Mukand. At Monday’s closing market price of the three listed companies, the direct equity held by Bachhraj in these companies would value its holding at a staggering Rs. 1093 crores. The shares have been purchased from the Birlas over the last one year by the Rahul Bajaj group.

This is significant in the wake of the recent spat that has arisen between Rahul Bajaj and Kushagra Bajaj, son of Rahul Bajaj’s younger brother Shishir Bajaj. Kushagra Bajaj has accused his uncle Rahul of trying to wrest control of the Bajaj group of companies belonging to the Shishir Bajaj faction. At the heart of the feud lies the various crossholdings of the extended Bajaj family in the numerous Bajaj group of companies.

Read the articles in The Economic Times 1 and 2.

Alagappan Murugappan returns to ICICI Securities as head of equities

Alagappan Murugappan has re-joined ICICI Securities, the investment banking division of The ICICI Group as head of equities. Prior to this, he was with private equity firm Deeva Capital where he was a partner and returns to the ICICI fold after an overall three-year stint in private equity. Before he joined ICICI Securities, Murugappan was with Cazenove, heading its Indian operations; Cazenove was primarily into equities broking. Murugappan began his career with Cazenove in London after qualifying as a solicitor in England. He holds an LLM from Cambridge University.

Murugappan was one of the three founding partners of Deeva Capital and had spent one year at Deeva. Deeva Capital is a start-up private equity firm with about $100 mn secured from international seed funding. Murugappan had left ICICI Securities in early 2004 to pursue a career in the private equity business. Then, Murugappan had joined Actis as an investment principal and was responsible for leading and coordinating fundraising activities relating to South Asia and for deal generation in India. Murugappan quit Actis to form Deeva in early 2006.

Read more in the article in AsianInvestor.net.

Amitabh Chakraborty joins Religare Securities as president of the equity business

Amitabh Chakraborty, who was heading the research team at BRICS Securities, has now joined Religare Securities Limited, a Ranbaxy group company, as President, Equity Business. He will be based out of Mumbai.

Mr. Chakraborty has been mandated for setting up the equity research team and spearheading the equity related initiatives to drive the high profile equity broking business at Religare.

Mr. Chakraborty was earlier with BRICS Securities. Prior to BRICS, he was heading the research team at Kotak Securities, from where he was sacked for an undisclosed internal code of violation.

Read the press release on Moneycontrol.com.