Record FII registration in November

A record number of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in November after the regulator banned fresh investments through participatory notes (P-notes).

Forty six new FIIs opened their offices in India during November, which is the highest ever single month registration by foreign investors. The previous highest monthly registrations took place in September 2005, when twenty nine FIIs enrolled with Sebi. The total number of FIIs registered with the regulator has increased to 1,170 from 1,124 at the beginning of the month.

CLSA, Goldman Sachs Investments, Citigroup Global Markets, Morgan Stanley and Swiss France Corporation from Mauritius, Thomas Weisel Partners, Wintergreen Fund and ICON Advisers from USA, Credit Suisse from Singapore and Indus Capital Advisors, Bennelong Asset Management and Ferox Capital Management from United Kingdom (UK) are among the newly registered FIIs.

Eleven FIIs from the UK have registered in India in the current month, followed by ten from USA, nine from Mauritius, six from Luxembourg, three from Hong Kong, two from Denmark and one each from Australia, Malaysia and Singapore.

India Deep Value Fund, a Mauritius-based fund founded by Robin Rodriguez and Ravi Agarwal, was among the new registrations. The fund's managers seek to achieve long-term capital gains by acting as pro-active deep value investors in the publicly-traded Indian stocks.

D E Shaw (UK) has a significant presence in many of the world's capital markets. It invests in a wide range of companies and financial instruments across major industrialized nations and emerging markets.

The Luxembourg-based Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch and Cie, is the oldest private banking firm in Geneva and one of the largest in Switzerland and Europe. Crosby Asset Management (Hong Kong) is one of Asia's longest established independent asset management firms. Meanwhile, 177 FIIs have already opened their offices in India so far this year compared with 170 FIIs registered in calendar year 2006, 186 in 2005 and 120 in 2004. A total of 993 FIIs were registered with Sebi at the beginning of this year.