AGL 38.54 Increased By ▲ 0.97 (2.58%)
AIRLINK 129.50 Decreased By ▼ -3.00 (-2.26%)
BOP 5.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.53%)
CNERGY 3.86 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (2.39%)
DCL 8.73 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.58%)
DFML 41.76 Increased By ▲ 0.76 (1.85%)
DGKC 88.30 Decreased By ▼ -1.86 (-2.06%)
FCCL 35.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.23%)
FFBL 67.35 Increased By ▲ 0.85 (1.28%)
FFL 10.61 Increased By ▲ 0.46 (4.53%)
HUBC 108.76 Increased By ▲ 2.36 (2.22%)
HUMNL 14.66 Increased By ▲ 1.26 (9.4%)
KEL 4.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-2.26%)
KOSM 6.95 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (1.46%)
MLCF 41.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-0.36%)
NBP 59.60 Increased By ▲ 1.02 (1.74%)
OGDC 183.00 Increased By ▲ 1.75 (0.97%)
PAEL 26.25 Increased By ▲ 0.55 (2.14%)
PIBTL 5.97 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (2.4%)
PPL 146.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.70 (-1.15%)
PRL 23.61 Increased By ▲ 0.39 (1.68%)
PTC 16.56 Increased By ▲ 1.32 (8.66%)
SEARL 68.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-0.71%)
TELE 7.23 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.14%)
TOMCL 35.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.14%)
TPLP 7.85 Increased By ▲ 0.45 (6.08%)
TREET 14.20 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.28%)
TRG 50.45 Decreased By ▼ -0.40 (-0.79%)
UNITY 26.75 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (1.33%)
WTL 1.21 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 9,806 Increased By 37.8 (0.39%)
BR30 29,678 Increased By 278.1 (0.95%)
KSE100 92,304 Increased By 366.3 (0.4%)
KSE30 28,840 Increased By 96.6 (0.34%)

Japan's Nomura will pay about 1.38 billion rupees ($29 million) to buy 19.3 percent stake in LIC Mutual Fund (MF), part of a deal to acquire 35 percent, a top official of a group firm of the Indian money manager said.
The deal values the fund firm at $149.3 million, or about 2.5 percent of its May average assets of nearly 286 billion rupees. "We have got around 39.3 percent stake in LIC Mutual Fund," R.R. Nair, Chief Executive of LIC Housing Finance told Reuters in a telephone interview on June 15. "Twenty percent we will be holding back. Balance will be offloaded to Nomura."
LIC Housing and LIC Mutual are both units of state-owned Life Insurance Corp of India, the country's largest insurer. The deal was valued lower than 4-5 percent that many Indian money managers have fetched because more than 90 percent of LIC Mutual's assets were in low margin fixed-income funds, Chintamani Dagade, a senior research analyst at Morningstar India, said.
"Such a valuation would be in line with what the market would be expecting. It looks okay," he said. Separately, mortgage lender GIC Housing Finance Ltd said its board had approved sale of its entire holding of 11.2 percent in LIC Mutual and 3 percent in LIC Trustee Company for about 890 million rupees.
GIC officials could not be immediately reached for comment but Nair at LIC Housing said the deal was part of a plan to sell 35 percent of LIC Mutual to Nomura to give the Indian money manager access to global markets and strengthen its operations. "This is to bring in an international player with expertise and exposure," Nair said. "We thought it will benefit the company."
"After the deal, both LIC and LIC Housing (together) will hold 65 percent in LIC Mutual Fund," he said. LIC Mutual Chief Executive Sushobhan Sarker confirmed holding talks to sell a stake to Nomura, but declined to give details citing non-disclosure agreement.
Nomura Asset Management spokeswoman in Japan also declined comment. Assets of Indian funds industry have jumped 60 percent to 6.6 trillion rupees in two years, luring the likes of JPMorgan, South Korea's Mirae Asset, Pioneer Global, the fund arm of Italian bank UniCredit and France's Axa.
More than 20 firms, including Credit Agricole and UBS are considering to enter India's promising but fiercely competitive fund market forecast by Boston Consulting Group to manage $520 billion by 2015.

Copyright Reuters, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.