One of India's ace investors, Radhakishen Damani, surprised the market on Friday when he bought 2.3 million shares of a cold storage company, Snowman Logistics, on the listing day. The shares were bought by his fund, Derive Investments, according to NSE data on bulk deals. Other big buyers of the stock were Reliance Mutual Fund Tax Saver Fund and Reliance Mutual Fund. With the entry of Damani, market sources believe the stellar show of the Snowman stock (it closed at 68 per cent premium over its issue price on Friday) is set to continue.
Balasubramanian set for Amfi vice-chairmanship
A Balasubramanian, CEO of Birla SunLife Mutual Fund, is all set to become the vice-chairman of the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). This decision will be declared after the Amfi annual general meeting on Monday. Bala, as he is popularly known, made it after a hotly contested selection process with another CEO of a leading mutual fund house. At present, Kotak Mutual Fund's former CEO Sandeep Kirkire is the vice-chairman. He resigned from the fund house in mid-August.
Shadow of an old bull on Dalal St
The bull market has created its own share of winners and losers, but there is one portfolio dating back 20 years which seems to have done exceptionally well. It belongs to one of the most famous bull market names on Dalal Street. The custodian of Harshad Shantilal Mehta, who holds the shares seized following the stock market scam of 1992, has a portfolio worth hundreds of crores, and today figures among the top dozen portfolios, according to exchange data.
Kostak back in action
The return of the initial public offering (IPO) boom has also seen the comeback of Kostak - a word which means paper in Marathi. The term applies to a practice under which retail investors are paid to apply for initial public offerings which are likely to be subscribed many times over, and of which it would be difficult to get shares. The agreement is that an allotment, if it happens, will be for the person paying the investor.
If there is no allotment, the retail investor still gets paid. One recent IPO had investors being offered around Rs 500 for every application of Rs 14,000 - a cool return of 3-5 per cent in a matter of days.
