Sebi bars Ketan firms from trading
Mumbai: Bull operator Ketan Parekh’s group firms have been debarred from conducting stock broking and merchant banking business, with immediate effect according an order from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).  The barred firms include Triumph International Finance, Triumph Securities, NH Securities and Classic Share & Stock Broking Services. Top Sebi sources said: “Four firms of the Ketan Parikh group have been debarred from doing business with immediate effect, under section 11B of the Sebi Act.” Out of these four firms, Triumph International Finance is a merchant banker and also trading member of National Stock Exchange (NSE) while other companies are into the stockbroking business.
The move to ban these firms from doing fresh business follows the prima facie findings by the market regulator of stock price manipulation by these firms. Sebi has called these firms on April 16 to hear their views. Ketan Parekh has been a very prominent player in the stock market and his favourite stocks included those from the new economy sector popularly known as “K-10”
stocks. Among his favourite stocks were HFCL, Global Telesystems, Zee Telefilms, DSQ Software among others.
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Probe into Gelli-Parekh links still on, says RBI
Mumbai: The RBI says that the Global Trust Bank probe is still on and chairman Ramesh Gelli will not be able to escape the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) dragnet if found guilty of insider trading despite the merger with UTI Bank being cancelled. RBI officials maintain that it is not calling off the probe. Since GTB has decided against going ahead with the merger the RBI has merely informed the Sebi about the development. This is a communication between two regulators on the development of an on-going issue. We have not asked Sebi to stop investigations,” said an RBI source.
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Ranbaxy company sold GTB shares to Nirma
Mumbai: Ketan Parekh seems to have had his tentacles
everywhere. It appears that an investment company associated with Ranbaxy Laboratories had sold a chunk of Global Trust
Bank shares to three investments outfits controlled by the Nirma group. The three investment companies own a little below five
percent in the bank. Triumph International, a KP company, brokered the share transfer from Vidyut Investments, a Ranbaxy company, to the Nirma group of companies. As it investigates the allegations of GTB price rigging, Sebi is looking into the different buying interests in the scrip. According to government sources, foreign institutional investor CSFB also picked up substantial amount of GTB shares. The FII is believed to have done the investments in its sub-account Kallar Kalhar Investments. However, there is no evidence as of now that these purchases were made at the instance of or on behalf of the disgraced broker Ketan Parekh. Different companies of Parekh had at one point directly owned over 4.5 per cent of the GTB equity. While his official holding has come down to 1 per cent and never exceeded the 5 per cent trigger, there was a widely shared perception that KP was using other companies to buy GTB shares.
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The railway IT corporation—shrouded in confusion
New Delhi: Very few people in the railways have any idea of what the IT corporation set up by former railway minister Mamta Banerjee will do. The IT corporation was set up “to avail of the opportunities offered by e-commerce.” but Rail Bhawan officials have little clue about what the new entity would do. “As of now, I am not aware of any business plan for the proposed venture,” said a senior rail official. A former board member of the railways, however, had some idea about the project as he was involved in the discussions. According to him, the railways are planning to embark on a comprehensive training programme in information technology for their employees. During discussions in the railways ministry it was felt that training software developed in-house by the railways could be sold to others and the business could be spun off as a separate profitable venture. As part of the railways’ efforts to explore new business opportunities, Banerjee had cited the newly set up Railtel Corporation of India Ltd as a success story and announced in her Budget speech that the ministry would set up a new IT company. Railtel is laying a network of optical fibre cable across the country using its right of way along tracks and would offer its surplus bandwidth for commercial gain.
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