Brokerages hardsell India story abroad

Broking firms -- both domestic as well as foreign -- seem busy hardselling the India story to institutional investors.

Many of them are conducting investor conferences in India and abroad, showcasing the country's potential.

Kotak Institutional Equities and Goldman Sachs hosted an international investor conference -- India Unplugged: Promise of a New Era in New York earlier in February, which met with a significant success.

The conference was attended by more than 150 institutional investors. The attendees comprised decision makers from institutional investors, which included US-based global and emerging market funds, hedge funds as well as private equity investors.

Falguni Nayar, executive director, Kotak Institutional Equities, said, "Institutional investor interest was visible across the universe of Indian companies, as more than 300 one-on-one meetings took place with senior representatives from India Inc during the 3-day conference. India is becoming key investment destination and exposure to India equity is becoming important for funds to raise money from their global investors."

Similarly, Deutsche Securities just concluded a three-day investor conference in Mumbai that was attended by over 100 institutional investors.

The Kotak- Goldman Sachs conference was attended by senior industry leaders including Uday Kotak, executive vice chairman and managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, Mike Ryan, global head of equities product group, Goldman Sachs, Narasimharamulu, director of finance, National Thermal Power Corporation, Praveen Kadle, executive director, finance and corporate affairs, Tata Motors Ltd, Sumant Sinha, president, corporate finance, Aditya Birla Group, Roopa Purushothaman, associate economist, Goldman Sachs, Neeraj Kanwar, chief operating officer, Apollo Tyres Ltd, and Prabal Banerji, treasurer, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, to name a few.

Other entities hosting similar conferences include ICICI Securities and Morgan Stanley.

The ICICI Securities' do kicks off on March 7, 2005 in Singapore. Devesh Kumar, head of equity, ICICI Securities, said, " This is the fourth year we are having an investor conference overseas. The idea is to showcase India's potential that will unleash over a period of time."

More than 50 corporates and over 200 investors are expected to participate in the conference, he added.

The first two days of the event focusses on non-information technology companies, while the last day was dedicated to IT offshoring.

The conference, apart from showcasing large and mid-sized companies, saw presentations by new players in new emerging industries like property and insurance.

Host of foreign participants evinced tremendous interest in India's real estate and insurance sectors, Falguni added.