Joining Morgan Stanley will be: JM FinancialÆs current head of investment banking, VK Bansal; executive directors of corporate finance DS Kamal Yadav and Divyesh Desai; and associate director, Sachin Wagle.
In February 2007, when JM Financial and Morgan Stanley dissolved their investment banking joint venture Morgan Stanley took full ownership of institutional equities sales, trading and research. It already had investment management and real estate businesses in the country as well as a team handling business the firm outsources to India. Across all these products it has about 900 employees based in India as well as bankers covering India from offshore.
At the time, Morgan Stanley had said it would add to its investment banking, capital markets, fixed income and wealth management teams. Morgan Stanley is keen to quickly establish an on-the-ground presence in investment banking as it already has a number of bankers offshore covering India. Indeed, Morgan Stanley was a joint bookrunner for the recent $1.75 billion ADS issued by Indian metals and mining company, Sterlite Industries.
ôWe are in dialogue with several potential candidates for investment banking roles and will be finalising most of our senior hiring over the next few weeks,ö says a Morgan Stanley spokesperson.
Onlookers are not surprised that JM Financial was an early port of call for Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley has seen and worked with the team it has brought on board, in some cases since 1999 when it formed the JV.
ôTerms of the joint venture dissolution agreement between ourselves and Morgan Stanley allowed each side to poach up to five executives,ö comments a JM Financial spokesperson.
Meanwhile JM Financial has promoted Atul Mehra and Adi Patel, both with the JM group for more than 15 years, to co-head investment banking. Dipti Neelakantan, another veteran, will join the board of directors of the investment banking business and take over as chief operating officer.
As the Indian economy continues to boom, there seems no doubt that enough business exists for all the investment banks operating in the country. The question is, are there enough experienced people to staff them?
¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
