Indian bourses can help raise $100-150 bn every year: BSE

Steadfastly focus is needed on helping India raise capital and create wealth rather than only doing trading for the sake of trading, says BSE chief

Pitching for stock exchanges to become a major avenue for raising capital and channelise them into investments, BSE’s CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan on Thursday said that bourses can help companies garner $100-150 billion worth funds a year, marking an over tenfold increase from current levels.

He also said the exchanges need to shift their focus away from being a place to do “trading just for the sake of trading” to become such a platform for capital formation. “At BSE, in the past three to four years, the companies have been raising close to $10-12 billion, by way of IPOs, offer for sale, debt instruments etc.

“We have to raise the bar by expanding our facilities and our ability to take it close to $100-150 billion a year so that the funds are channelised into investments," Chauhan said.

The BSE chief, who was here to attend the India Investors Forum and other events in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-profile US visit, said the role of stock exchanges can be important in helping “India create $1-1.5 trillion investments into productive sectors and help create jobs".

“We need to steadfastly focus on helping India raise capital and create wealth rather than only doing trading for the sake of trading. Basically, exchanges need to change their mindset.

“Today, a large portion of the exchanges’ revenue come from trading, that is from transaction charges, and we need to focus now more on capital raising. We have to participate in India’s growth and become a catalyst and growth engine or our economic growth story. We need to shift focus from trading to capital raising," he said.

Chauhan also assured the international investors that the Indian regulatory framework today is at the forefront of modern thinking about investor protection and investor rights.

“There is a special focus on how to provide the minority investors their rights and how to bring to transparency and fairness in the working of companies.

“In India, the capital markets regulator Sebi, the Ministry of Finance and the Corporate Affairs Ministry have strived in the past six months or so to ensure that investors who are used to protection and regulatory regime in most developed markets, get similar things in India," he said.

“Some of the newer regulations are such that they are even better than many advanced countries such as in the Americas and the Europe. For example, the new Companies Act provides that related party transactions be voted by only the non-promoter shareholders. That’s a huge change from the earlier mindset and would allow non-promoter shareholders to have a better say in the workings of a company," he added.