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Here is another high level exit from ICICI Securities, once used to be India's leading investment bank. J Niranjan, the head of investment banking, has left ICICI Sec to join CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets as a Managing Director and Co-Head of investment banking. He will be based in Mumbai. Niranjan's exit is significant for ICICI Sec since he has spent last 17 years at the firm.

ICICI Sec had recently lost two senior executives - Mehul Savla, head of equity capital markets, and Amrish Baliga, head of private equity, joined JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, respectively. Another key functionary Anuj Bhargava, the head of the business restructuring advisory group, had also moved out to parent ICICI Bank.

The exodus at ICICI Sec could be part of the recast the firm had gone through recently. In April this year, the Corporate Products and Investment Banking Group of ICICI Bank was renamed as the Global Investment Banking Group (GIBG). And the investment banking business of ICICI Securities was shifted to GIBG, while i-Sec was left with only equity markets and research.

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Yes Bank plans to hive off its investment banking business into a separate subsidiary, Reuters (DNA) reports, quoting the bank's founder and CEO Rana Kapoor. This is likely to happen before March 2009. “We can even do it before that though it will not be until we build up scale and our track record,” Kapoor told the wire agency.

Yes Bank has been picking up quite a few capital raising initiatives or M&A deals recently. In November 2006, Yes Bank advised United Phosphorus in its $142-million acquisition of Cerexagiri, the crop protection unit of French chemicals company Arkema. Yes Bank was one of the advisors for Suzlon in its acquisition of German wind turbine maker REPower. It also advised Sintex Industries in acquiring the US-based Wausaukee Composites Inc for $20.5 million. Yes Banks' most recent deal was as advisor to InfrasoftTech when the latter secured $25 million funding from Baring Private Equity last fortnight.

Kapoor's logic is this: “We are doing big deals in investment banking and this (spinning the unit off) is the best way to attract better investors. Independent businesses make more sense." He said that the bank "plans to build a niche for itself" by focussing on companies in the knowlege economy and emerging corporates keen on fund raising and acquisition, and in outbound M&A. Yes Bank is also planning an entry into microfinance business. Kapoor also said that Yes Bank is planning a $100 million private equity fund, although details are not available. Yes Bank already has set up an agri business fund, which could have a corpus of $100 million.

Kapoor also said the bank is in "active discussion" with financial investors abroad to raise up to $120 million by diluting 6.7 per cent stake either through private placement of shares or through qualified institutional placement, Reuters reports.

ICICI Bank's UK subsidiary has registered record profits mainly on account of increased fee income for advisory work on cross border M&A, reports The Economic Times. ICICI Bank UK has raked in a profit after tax of $18.7 million for the first quarter ended June 30, 2007, against $3.7 million in the same quarter the previous year. Its balance sheet has also seen a sharp rise to $6.4 billion from $2.4 billion during the same period.

Apparently, ICICI Bank UK is now one of the most profitable subsidiaries of the country’s largest private bank. The overseas branches of ICICI Bank and State Bank of India have been aggressively funding overseas acquisitions of Indian corporates, says the report.

It quotes Sonjoy Chatterjee, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank UK, said, “A significant portion of the revenues is from advisory fees earned from Indian corporates making overseas acquisitions and also financing these corporates. The last one year has also seen client-related derivative transactions from the Belgium branch." It's not clear which were the big deals ICICI Bank UK had worked on. The bank has six branches in the UK.

Nimesh Kampani, who split with Morgan Stanley in February this year, is reportedly looking for an international partnership in investment banking. Kampani's investment bank JM Financial wants a global alliance in order to strike big ticket cross border M&A deals for its clients, a report in Business Standard says.

If you want to be part of a Tata-Corus ($10-billion) or a Hindalco-Novelis ($6 billion) deal, then you need to be an i-bank with a strong balance sheet too. In the case of Corus deal, Tata Steel was advised by ABN AMRO, Deutsche Bank and Rothschild. ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank, among others, had provided funding to Tata in the Corus acquistion. In large global M&As, the funding abilities will also matter. Kampani could be try to bridge this gap through an alliance.

By the way, JM also has a $50 million Special Situation Fund (proprietary investment), from which it will invest in publicly listed companies (through preferential allotment). It had recently invested $5.5 million in the Mumbai-based Ankur Drugs and Pharmaceuticals from this fund. It's run by Basant Agarwal.

JM also has a $200 million fund in partnership with Old Lane Partners of Vikram Pandit (Old Lane was recently bought out by Citigroup, and is now part of its Alternative Investment division). This fund has investments in Delhi-based Genesis Colors, Punjab-based International Tractors and the Gurgaon-based autocomponent firm Sona group. JM is also looking at launching its second private equity fund of $400-500 million sometime soon.

Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc plans to buy an investment bank in India, its Deputy President Hiroshi Toda has been quoted by agencies as saying. Last month, it was reported that Nomura was in talks with Mumbai-based Enam Financial for an acquisition. Toda, however, declined to name the firm his company is eyeing. Enam was earlier reportedly in talks with JP Morgan for a tie-up or a merger, which has failed to take off.

Toda had said last year that Nomura would start investment banking, trading and research in India in 2007. Last month, it was reported that the Tokyo-based firm would either apply for an investment banking and broking licences or look at acquiring firms with such operations. So Nomura is now dead serious about India.

Nomura also plans to undertake principal investments in India, and it plans to earmark about $200 million for this. In February 2006, Nomura Group had picked up 5 per cent stake in Ahmedabad-based Dishman Pharmaceuticals for over Rs 50 crore ($11.3 million).

Nomura's entry is part of the huge rush by big foreign securities firms into India. Credit Suisse today announced that it received merchant banking licence to operate in India. Another global biggie Bear Stearns is also looking at an India foray.

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Credit Suisse Receives Merchant Banking Licence In India

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has announced that it has received merchant banking licence from India's market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India. This will allow Credit Suisse to provide onshore securities underwriting and corporate finance services in India.

The investment banking team is led by V. Anantharaman, who joined Credit Suisse in October 2006. In addition to capital raisings, Credit Suisse expects to ride on the growing cross border M&A and domestic consolidation in industries such as financial services, consumer goods, natural resources, communications & IT, and real estate.

Paul Calello, CEO of Credit Suisse Investment Bank, said: “We are very pleased with this development...Our expansion into investment banking onshore in India highlights Credit Suisse’s broad-based approach in building an integrated, comprehensive global financial services platform in the country.” In March 2007, Credit Suisse launched its brokerage operations in India.

Besides Credit Suisse, several international banks and broking firms like Nomura Securities and Bear Stearns are looking at on the ground presence in India.

Religare Enterprises Ltd, the financial services company owned by the promoters of Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals, has filed the draft red herring prospectus with market regulator SEBI for an initial public offering. Religare, earlier known as Fortis Securities, is expected to raise about Rs 150-160 crore via IPO. It had recently launched a host of services like online and offline stock broking for retail, corporate and institutional clients.

Religare proposes to issue 11,364,152 equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price to be decided through a 100 per cent book building process. The shares will be listed on both Bombay and National Stock Exchanges. A press release said that the company may issue up to 3,788,050 equity shares to certain investors via a pre-IPO placement, so that many shares will be reduced from the IPO issue.

The book running lead managers to the Issue are Enam Financial Consultants and Citigroup Global Markets. Religare, along with its various subsidiaries, offers a wide range of services ranging from equities, commodities, insurance broking, wealth advisory, portfolio management, investment banking and institutional broking services.

The company's principal subsidiaries include: Religare Securities, Religare Finvest, Religare Commodities, and Religare Insurance Broking.

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The Economic Times has some details about US investment bank JP Morgan's plans in India. It intends to double its proprietary investments in the next one year. It has so far made an investment of about $500-750 million in a variety of sectors like cement, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare and BPO. Some of its investee companies include Binani Cement, L&T-IDPL and Apollo Hospitals. JP Morgan’s MD and head of investment banking, Vedika Bhandarkar, tells the paper that the firm is looking at doubling proprietary investments into such companies.

The firm has also been ramping up its investment banking division, a development which gathered momentum after its talks to acquire Enam Financial failed a few months back. JP Morgan recently hired Ranjit Lakhanpal of Credit Suisse, as managing director of corporate finance, and Mehul Savla of ICICI Securities as an executive director in the equity capital markets division.

It has also shifted the firm's London-based executive Cyrus Mehta to Mumbai as executive director of leveraged finance business. The firm has also hired more than10 analysts in the last couple of months. Currently, JP Morgan has a small team of 25 people in the i-banking division, which will be ramped up to 30-35 by the end of the year.

US-headquartered investment bank JP Morgan has made some high level appointments. The bank has hired Ranjit Lakhanpal of Credit Suisse, as managing director of corporate finance. It has also hired Mehul Savla of ICICI Securities as an executive director in the equity capital markets division, reports Reuters. Lakhanpal has earlier worked with Goldman Sachs too.

JPMorgan has also shifted its London-based Cyrus Mehta to Mumbai as executive director of leveraged finance business. The firm has also hired more than10 analysts in the last couple of months.

A few days ago, there was a talk of Reliance Capital venturing into investment banking in partnership with global biggies like Bear Stearns. Irrespective of a deal with Reliance Capital, Bear Stearns seems to be upbeat about the Indian market, and is looking to enter the country either through a JV or independently, The Economic Times reports, quoting unnamed sources.

India has almost all the global biggies like Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, CSFB, Morgan Stanley and UBS. Bear Stearns, although it has worked with Indian companies on certain deals (advised Hiranandani Constructions on its AIM listing), did not have a full-fledged operation in India. Now the company is looking at launching both investment banking and broking operations.

Bear Stearns has also been investing in India as a foreign institutional investor. The New York-based firm, set up in 1923, has three core areas of practice - capital markets, wealth management and global clearing services. The company, with 15,000 employees, had total capital of $75.1 billion (as of May 31, 2007) and total assets of $334.8 billion (as of August 31, 2006). Bear Stearns is the seventh largest securities firm in terms of total capital.