Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest securities firm in the US, has clinched the deal to buy institutional broking business of Mumbai-based Brics Securities. | |
| Sources said Lehman Brothers is likely to disclose the new acquisition to the regulators in the US, where it is listed, later this week . |
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| Brics Securities was created in October 2003 after the acquisition and rechristening of Birla Sun Life Securities - a joint venture between the Aditya Birla group and the Sunlife Group of Canada. |
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| Nayan Arun Jagjivan, owner of Brics Securities, had made his fortune in trading in international commodities and currencies before he bought Birla Sun Life Securities four years ago for a paltry Rs 10 crore. He later turned Birla Sun Life Securities into Bric Securities. A few key employees hold a minority stake in Bric Securities. |
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| Brics Securities, the financial services arm of J V Gokal Group, is one of the top-ranked brokerage houses in India, catering to high networth clients. Post-deal, the research team, headed by Prabhat Awasthi and his 21-member institutional team, institutional sales (8 members) and derivatives sales (12 members) will be move to Lehman Brothers. V R Srinivasan, CEO of Brics Securities, said: "We have no comments to offer at this point of time." |
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| The sources said Brics Securities, which recently hired Rahul Rege from Sharekhan to head the retail business, will expand the retail brokerage business in the coming years. |
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| The institutional broking business in India is worth $1 billion (Rs 5,000 crore) and growing at 15-20 per cent per annum, luring Wall Street majors such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. |
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| Brics Securities is the latest amongst a slew of domestic brokerages which is attracting global interest. E* Trade, the US-based broking major, picked up a controlling stake in IL&FS Investsmart, France's BNP Paribas has bought 33 per cent stake in Geojit Financial Services, Stanchart picked up 49 per cent stake in UTI Securities, Citigroup Venture Capital bought Sharekhan and BankMuscat has equity stake in Mangal Keshav. |
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| The trading volume in the Indian markets is expected to double to $ 3.2 trillion in 2010 from about $ 1.6 trillion currently. |
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| Morgan Stanley projects the Indian brokerage business to grow to $ 3.9 billion by 2015. |
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