Promoters cash out as stocks rally

With the benchmark indices rising 35 per cent this year, promoters are seeing an opportunity to pare their stakes at higher valuations and raise cash. As the bulk deal data provided by stock exchanges show, a number of promoter group entities, including Talwalkar Fitness, Bajaj Corp, Gokaldas Exports and Crompton Greaves, have pared their stakes in the past few weeks. "While a promoter selling stake sends out a weak signal, the market has provided a much-needed window to raise cash for retiring debt," said an analyst.

Mayank Patwardhan

Infusing life into ETFs
Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, which are popular passive investment vehicles globally, have not taken off in India. Concerned by the lukewarm response to these instruments, the Association of Mutual funds of India, has set up an expert panel to suggest steps to infuse life into ETFs. ETFs' assets are currently only about Rs 13,000 crore. If one removes assets of gold ETFs, they are less than Rs 6,000 crore and the total folio size is only 200,000. Compare this to the MF sectors's total assets of around Rs 11 lakh-crore and overall folios of almost one million. Clearly, the panel has its work cut out.

Jayshree P Upadhyay

Zero success rate for Sebi's new IPO allotment process
Sebi's new allotment process for initial public offerings (IPOs), introduced in 2012, was aimed at giving guaranteed allotment to small investors of one lot at least. However, the guarantee scheme has not been used in 2014, at least till now. This is because all the five IPOs of 2014, including that of just-concluded Monte Carlo, have seen huge oversubscription in the retail category. The demand was so high that the investment bankers had no choice but to resort to a lottery system for allotment.

Samie Modak