Raychaudhuri joins BNP Paribas from UBS where he spent nine years, most recently as India strategist. Raychaudhuri joined UBS from ICICI Securities. He has spent his career covering equity markets after a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta.
Raychaudhuri has no doubt been attracted to BNP Paribas by the opportunity to lead the French bank's research platform. He will head a team of 22 analysts and drive the equity research product for BNP Paribas.
BNP Paribas Securities Asia is the equity brokerage platform of BNP Paribas in the region. It established an equities research business in India in 2007. The India team is the second largest in the region after the Hong Kong-China platform.
Raychaudhuri joins BNP Paribas at an interesting time. Indian equity markets have shed four yearsÆ of gains in the past few weeks and are now trading at 2004 levels. It is still not clear whether the meltdown is over and foreign institutional investors are being cautious about re-entering the market, both because of concerns about the economy and because bargains are available across markets, making India one of many potential investment destinations.
The move by BNP Paribas does, however, corroborate that global investment banks are taking a long-term view on their India franchises and are continuing to hire û albeit selectively. Investment banking in India has not seen anything like the mass lay-offs elsewhere in the region, although firms have downsized in line with their global headcount reduction targets.
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