The volatile Indian stock market may have been hit harder than stock markets in the developed world during January but it hasn’t frightened companies that believe in its upside, judging on latest global IPO data.

The Indian market wide NIFTY index from the Indian Stock Exchange is down 15 per cent between 1 January and 15 February compared the ASX 300 being down 12 per cent and the US S&P down 8 per cent.

But IPOs in India are recovering faster than elsewhere, so fast that the dawning economic superpower could salvage and breathe new life in the global IPO market.

“It seems India is one country saving the ailing Global IPO market with US$3.3 billion worth of proceeds from eight deals, making it the largest IPO market in the world so far this year,” said Thomson Financial’s Deals Express report.

“The bulk of volumes came from the biggest IPO deal so far this year - Reliance Power’s US$3 billion IPO last January 21.”

Thomson Financial also noted, “India garnered 49.1 per cent of Global IPO proceeds compared to just 3.7 per cent in the same period last year. A feat considering the Global IPO decline of 36.1 per cent compared to the same period last year.”

This however just confirms how slow the IPO market is looking globally. “Taking off Reliance Power’s US$3 billion IPO - Global IPO decline must have gone down by 64 per cent. Both Top Two Largest IPO markets last year, China and US, experienced declines compared to the same period last year,” said Thomson Financial.

The news gets even better for investors willing to jump back into the subcontinent. “India still has a hefty IPO pipeline to come. In fact, this week, a total of three IPOs from India is set to launch. Emaar MGF’s IPO, estimated at US$1.6 billon will be the second largest IPO in the world so far this year, behind Reliance Power’s US$3 billion IPO.”

If India is bouncing back faster than anyone expected, then why is it still so hard for planners to invest into the country? Influential planners who attended the recent Financial Standard Chief Economists Forum said that encouraging their platforms to put Indian funds onto their platforms was so difficult they were considering to go direct instead.

As far as India is concerned, maybe it’s time for wealth management to catch up with the economic reality.

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Investment banking is a spiteful business that seems to bring out the worst in some of its participants. There are those who cannot wait to see a close competitor fall on its face. Even more acceptable is the pronouncement of death, which will allow the participants to dance on their competitor’s grave.

There are three investment banks in particular – Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Barclays Capital – that some Euromarket spectators would enjoy seeing taking a fall which would require them to be stretchered away by paramedics and into intensive care. There used to be four, but Société Générale spectacularly met its own internal Waterloo – have you also noticed how little sympathy there is for the French bank?

Of course, the attitude of the ghoulish spectators is based largely on jealousy. Société Générale was “too clever by half”, and how could a medium-sized French bank dominate the huge international equity derivatives sector?

Despite the revelations about Jérôme Kerviel, that equity derivatives franchise is still intact. The only question is whether Société Générale’s main counterparties will remain as loyal as before.

Goldman Sachs is involved in almost every single large public transaction, but underneath it is a trading house which lives on its risk management and trading prowess. Where it excels is in its allocation of capital resources.

Time after time it moves its own capital around at lightning speed and makes, usually but not always, correct bets, while its flat-footed competitors are left holding stale portions which produce substantial losses.

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We evolved from monkeys. So nothing odd that apart from monkeying on the cricket fields, our stock markets also have many of these creatures.

Technology has really taken away a lot of fun from watching the stock markets in action. All you see is bleary-eyed executives sitting in front of several screens. One press of a button and a transaction is through.

Watch clips of the old outcry system and you will realise that Darwin was right. Jobbers jumping and pumping their hands with each quote, much like a group of monkeys acting excitedly in their cage. While technology has made one species of monkeys vanish, it has left several new species that need to be tackled.

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Orissa is set to get about one lakh crore rupees in investments from steel companies. And that will create one lakh new jobs, giving a steady source of income to one lakh families in the state. About one-third will be directly employed by the steel plants and the remaining will get employed through a multiplier effect.

So, here’s the equation. Three crore rupees creates one direct job and another two jobs indirectly. You don’t have to look any further to see why the latest growth estimates look like they do.

GDP growth estimated for 2007-08 might be slightly lower than what was anticipated but that’s hardly the statistic to be worried about. The worrying number is the growth in household consumption expenditure - just above 6.5 per cent. So, an economy growing at nearly 9 per cent can’t generate consumption growth of even 7 per cent.

On the other hand, everyone reading this article must have experienced exactly the opposite in the past one year. Their consumption expenditure has surely grown faster than their income. That’s because all of us who speak in English, surf the Net and read columns about the stock markets have done well for ourselves in the past few years.

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Two daughters got married in recent weeks, a Goenka girl and a Ruia. There were thus two sets of extended festivities, taking in their glittering embrace the country’s power elites. So it was twice the opportunity to bless couples, be seen, schmooze-and, most of all-eat as if antacids were going out of style.

At both, the jaw-dropping array on the buffet tables was a hotter subject of conversation than the falling Sensex and mercury in Mumbai. (Bridal rocks are simply taken for granted.) It wasn’t just traditional fare, which is still par for the course at most Indian weddings. The menu reaffirmed that globalisation was well and truly entrenched in Indian big business. Both weddings featured specialties from several continents. The Taj had been commissioned for the Ruia wedding; Harsh Goenka, being a great foodie, had taken the trouble to get chefs from their country of origin, planning their air travel and lodging as meticulously as the elaborate fare.

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Venture capitalism is a system wherein a person or a company often referred to as venture capitalists invest money in a company or business exchange for a stake in the business or a share in the earnings, present and future, of the company.

Venture capitalists are frequently the ones that provide funding for companies that are in need of seed money to start up their business. Often, they support businesses that have a high potential for growth and those that they feel will return their investments multiple-folds. Companies that have innovative ideas and products are primary targets of venture capitalists. They are also partial to industries that are into innovations like Information Technology, Biotechnology and the medical fields.

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