FTIL exit Bourse Africa soon?

After exiting the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, the Multi-Commodity Exchange and the Indian Energy Exchange (the share purchase agreement has been signed), Financial Technologies (FTIL) is expected to exit the Bourse Africa, the group's multi-asset exchange, soon. A year ago, the Mauritius-based Global Board of Trade was merged with the Bourse Africa and sectoral sources say the combined entity will be sold.

A consortium led by a leading African private equity investor is said to be among the front runners. Once this transaction is done, Jignesh Shah, chairman of FTIL, will have only a minority stake in Dubai Gold and Commodity Exchange and Bahrain Financial Exchange.

Goldman fillip for Federal, YES Bank

In the past month, foreign institutional investor Goldman Sachs has entered the counters of Federal Bank and YES Bank aggressively, say market players. YES Bank and Federal Bank shares are up 22 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, in a month. Private sector banks have been attracting FIIs' interest for some time. They have exhausted their 49 per cent limit in HDFC Bank.

Analysts favour private sector banks in comparison to public sector peers because the former are expected to do better on growth. The latter is also suffering from higher non-performing assets and leadership challenges. YES Bank and Federal Bank closed at Rs 676 and Rs 145, respectively, on Friday.

MFs raise holdings in IDFC fourfold

Mutual funds have been lapping up shares of Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) since it got in-principle approval for a banking licence. In the past quarter, as many as 112 mutual fund schemes, up from 65 in the earlier quarter, have bought the stock and quadrupled their holdings.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have steadily reduced their stake from 52.61 per cent in the March quarter to 47.63 per cent. Sectoral players said this was because FII holding cannot be more than 49 per cent in the first five years of the bank, according to the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines.