Bear Stearns still a crowd-puller in India

Bear Stearns & Co, the fifth-biggest securities firm in the US, is battling with losses in two of its hedge funds due to rising home loan defaults in sub-prime markets, But the firm seems to have had no problem in getting the crème de la crème of Indian business for its annual India investor conference now on in the US.

Top executives of nearly 50 Indian blue chip companies, among them Reliance Industries, Oil & Natural Gas Corp, TCS, Infosys Technologies, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Mahindra & Mahindra, DLF Ltd, Hindustan Unilever, Wipro Technologies and Pantaloon Retail, are participating in the two-day conference at Bear Stearns headquarters in New York.

Former finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, was the main speaker at the event, which was attended by S D Sibulal, COO of Infosys, Francisco D'Souza, president & CEO of Cognizant Technology, S Sambamurthy of TCS and Alok Agarwal, CFO of Reliance Industries.

Bear Stearns & Co, registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) as a Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) since 1996, has been able to also get a significant number of global investors for the meeting.

This is the third annual India conference held by the US securities firm in partnership with Indian brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities. The conference concludes on Wednesday.

"We are not in a position to comment on behalf of Bear Stearns & Co. But, we understand that the firm is bullish on India," said a source at a local brokerage, which is handling business for foreign clients.

Bear Stearns is said to be serious about investment banking and institutional equity broking in India.

There has been speculation that the firm is interested in picking up a small stake in Reliance Capital. But, sources suggested that its pre-occupation with troubles in the US would likely plans in other parts of the world.