Reliance Money, spearheading the personal finance initiatives of the Reliance ADAG group, has emerged in a big way in primary market fund raising activities by garnering over 20 per cent of a total number of over 49,70,000 applications received in the Reliance Power(RPL) initial public offer (IPO). This despite the involvement of all leading merchant bankers in the issue.
The company, which is seeking to be the top investment advisory and trading company in the country, has made a quiet foray into portfolio management services (PMS) with a minimum holding limit of Rs 5 lakh. Reliance Money offers various multiple-source financial products including credit cards, mutual funds and insurance products, besides equities trading and advisory.
Sudip Bandyopadhyay, director and CEO of Reliance Money, said, "Out of over 49,70,000 applications garnered by RPL in its IPO last month, over 10.27 lakh applications passed through us.”
Reliance Money had conducted RPL roadshows in 102 towns and cities and collected applications over 79,000 counters.
However, Bandyopadhyay quickly added that his company would not distribute all IPOs. "We will not recommend any issue that we think is unreasonably priced and is unlikely to give returns in the long term even if they approach us. The same is the case with mutual fund new fund offerings (NFOs)," he said.
Referring to the launch of PMS, Bandyopadhyay said that the company had taken a conscious decision to keep the limit at the minimum level fixed by the market regulator to help bring in salaried people and also to cater to the investors in the cities and towns that are not on the radar screen of other broking houses.
{{/usCountry}}Referring to the launch of PMS, Bandyopadhyay said that the company had taken a conscious decision to keep the limit at the minimum level fixed by the market regulator to help bring in salaried people and also to cater to the investors in the cities and towns that are not on the radar screen of other broking houses.
{{/usCountry}}According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) PMS can be offered on investments of over Rs 5 lakh.
Reliance Money, which is just a 10-month-old company, has already garnered about 6 lakh customers and is behind leader ICICI Direct by about 4 lakh clients. This was largely possible due to its unprecedented reach – 4,237 cities and towns or 4,257 tehsils out of 5,645 tehsils in the country through 5,000 access points. Reliance Money is also present in the businesses of money changing (forex exchange) and gold coin retailing.