Shcil To Make Its Software Division A Separate Company

He said the company board will soon take a final decision in this regard and will soon shortlist consultants for drawing up a business plan to turn the company into a financial supermarket.

He said that the company is also planning to enter the insurance sector as a distributor of various insurance products and is awaiting some clarifications from the government before applying for licence.

SHCIL is also planning to enter the capital market with an initial public offering (IPO) for shoring up its capital in order meet the networth requirements for setting up a limited purpose bank. The company's networth stands at Rs 115.9 crore as of March 2000.

Mr Goud said the company will soon take a decision on the size and time of the public issue. Meanwhile, SHCIL has posted a net profit of Rs 30.1 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2000 as against Rs 20.7 crore in the same period last year.

The total value of business processed by the corporation has gone up to Rs 1.047 lakh crore from Rs 30,500 crore and the value of assets in custody had gone up from Rs 91,900 crore to Rs 15.80 lakh crore.

The total income earned by the corporation had gone up from Rs 94.7 crore to Rs 139.3 crore. While the earnings per share stood at Rs 14.30 aganist Rs 9.89 in the previous year, the book value of share went up from Rs 45.08 to Rs 55.06.

SHCIL, which recently made a foray into retail segment, has garnered around 20 per cent of the depository account opened with NSDL.

Over the last two years, SHCIL has launched a variety of closely allied financial products, including Stockdirect, Sell-n-cash, loans against demat shares and distribution of mutual fund schemes. The company also provides clearing and settlement services to brokers operating in the derivative segment. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had recently allowed SHCIL to distribute and service relief bonds.