Alliance Capital's head of Asian emerging markets and the glamour boy of the fund-management industry, Samir Arora, has quit the company to form a new asset-management firm in association with Rana Talwar's SabreCapital.

Alliance Capital Asset Management (India) has announced the appointment of Rajnish Narula as chief executive officer of its asset-management business in India.

Narula is currently the head of investment services, priority banking, capital markets and non-resident business at Standard Chartered Bank.
 
SabreCapital is a private equity fund focusing on financial services. With Bank Muscat, it is in the process of taking over management control of Centurion Bank.

Rajiv Maliwal, managing director of SabreCapital, told Business Standard, "We are looking at a distribution-led fund management company, concentrating on retail rather than wholesale (investors)."

The company is likely to take off in three months. Arora will leave Alliance early in September, after which the combine will make a formal application to the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Arora said the first fund was likely to be launched in the next six months. He will relocate himself in India.

There have been talks of Centurion Bank being one of the sponsors for the new firm.

"We are in the process of finalising a potential sponsor for the new company," Maliwal said. He refused to confirm if Centurion Bank was being considered.

He pointed out that the issue was to decide whether to go in for a big sponsor with which the firm could build up a base soon, or for a smaller one, in which case SabreCapital would have more control.

On the question of his stake in the asset-management firm, Arora said his and Sabre's stakes would depend on the sponsor. The sponsor needed to have minimum 40 per cent stake, he said.

There have been unconfirmed reports that Deepak Mungla, head of sales at Alliance, and Dinshaw Irani, are slated to join the new company with Arora. Maliwal, however, refused to comment on the subject.

M S Verma, former chairman of State Bank of India and former chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, will join on the board of directors of Alliance Capital Asset Management.