Niranjan joins former ICICI Securities colleague, Pankaj Agarwal, at CLSA as co-head of investment banking. Agarwal has been head of investment banking for a number of years and operates with a two-member team. CLSA enjoys a standing in the country as a leading brokerage house but is largely seen as a niche - but highly profitable - player in investment banking.
NiranjanÆs hire illustrates CLSAÆs desire to expand its footprint in India and win more market share, say sources. The firm is expected to announce some further hires at more junior levels to build up its team.
Niranjan joined ICICI in its merchant banking division in 1990 and is among the rare breed of investment bankers who has stayed with one firm for over 15 years. He has built expertise across products and especially in equity capital markets which continue to boom in the country with the main index, the Sensex, scaling a new high of 15,000 recently.
ICICI Securities has had a good run in equity capital markets this year. As per the most recent Prime rankings it is first among all investment banks on funds raised for the first half of calendar 2007. It was a lead manager to both the DLF IPO, IndiaÆs largest IPO to date, and the ICICI Bank follow-on offering. The firm recently lost Mehul Savla who worked with Niranjan in equity capital markets to JPMorgan.
CLSA was not available for comment. ICICI Securities had no comment.
Niranjan is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore following an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology.
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