Mutual Funds get step-motherly treatment from distributors

Distributors of mutual funds, are selling more of fixed income products, ever since SEBI (Securities & Exchange Board of India) introduced the abolition of entry load on mutual funds. Under the new norms investors must pay fees separately to the distributor as compared to the earlier practice where commission were paid out of entry loads charged by the mutual funds. If initial trends are anything to go by distributors are now earning more from selling fixed income products compared to mutual funds, in the changed environment .

In recent months banks have slashed interest rates on bank fixed deposits leading to a revival in interest in small savings, post offices and GOI (Government of India) bonds. Company fixed deposits which made a comeback due to reputed corporates like Tatas and Mahindras raising money, along with NCDs (non-convertible debentures) from Shriram Transport Finance and L&T Finance, have found favour with investors. As per distributors corporate fixed deposits worth Rs. 600 crore (Rs. 6 billion) per month are being sold. Shriram Transport Finance and L&T Finance both raised Rs. 1,000 crore (Rs. 10 billion) each, through NCD issues in August and September. Compared to this, fresh sales in mutual funds are down. For the month of August 2009, equity mutual funds registered fresh sales of Rs. 4,184 crore (Rs. 41.84 billion) against Rs. 8,885 crore (Rs. 88.85 billion) in July 2009, a drop of 52.9%. Contribution of fixed income products in our product mix has gone up from 10% to 20% year on year for the month of August 2009, says Rajiv Deep Bajaj, vice- chairman and managing director, Bajaj Capital.

On the other hand, contribution from mutual funds, which was 20% in 2008-09 , slipped to about 10% since the regulation was introduced on August 1, 2009. Distributors on an average would earn as much as 3% upfront commissions through entry load and trail fees from sales of mutual funds. This fee is now down to about 1%, including both upfront and trail, for smaller players, making selling of mutual funds unremunerative. On the other hand the company fixed deposits are assuring at least 1% upfront commissions. Sales of mutual funds are down by 40%, and investors are buying more of fixed deposits and non convertible debentures. As the equity valuations go up, investors are seeking fixed income products. This makes the product easy to sell for distributors in tough times.

Source: The Economic Times

Atom-powered devices to enter India in a big way

Intel Corp, the worlds top chipmaker, expects its Atom processor to power a host of devices in the Indian market, in addition to the no-frills netbook or the nettop. These could be a mix of mobile banking devices, mobile internet devices (MID), point-of-sales terminals to even outdoor display terminals. Intel confirmed that a multitude of vendors were developing a spate of new applications in India. Talking to the Economic Times, Intel Technology India director (Marketing-South Asia) Prakash Bagri said Atom has the potential to power products like MID, mobile banking devices, GPS monitoring devices, personal healthcare gadgets, point-of-sales terminals, and even outdoor display terminals. Atom fits well in the embedded space and devices which deliver internet-centric experience or needs to be powered by internet. A lot of such devices are under development and may hit India soon, Mr. Bagri said.

Elaborating, Mr. Bagri said at least 35 vendors are developing MIDs with Atom. MIDs have a huge potential in India, once there is availability of a robust mobile data network. This will be possible when 3G and WiMax services comes into full play, he said. Incidentally, the company has just globally unveiled the Atom processor CE4100, the newest system-on-chip in a family of media processors designed to bring internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players and advanced set-top boxes. Intel has lately seen huge success with the Atom that created a completely new category of entry-level computers. Sales of netbooks and nettops are growing upwards of 100% quarter-on-quarter in India. Such performance was visible even during the slowdown when computer sales in India saw a degrowth, said Mr. Bagri.

Despite Atoms success, Intel has no plans to discontinue its previous entry-level Celeron processor. While Atom allows us to come up with newer kinds of form factors, Celeron has its own set of distinct users, both in the enterprise and consumer segment. Hence, there is a fair chance that both processors can co-exist in the market, said Mr. Bagri. He, however, admitted that India has always been a major market for the Pentium processor family. The same trend is now seen in the Core range of processors. In fact, a lot of Pentium consumers are now upgrading to the Core family, he said. Intel is also going to focus on rolling out newer processors based on its super-fast Nehalem microarchitecture . It plans to roll out several such processors in India over the next 4-5 quarters across the entire range of desktop, laptop and server. As part of this, it recently unveiled in India a series of such processors which will bring this microarchitecture to mainstream desktop and entry server markets.

Source: The Economic Times

Relief for private foreign universities: Quota law not binding

Foreign universities and education providers setting up campuses in India are unlikely to be required to provide for reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBC). Even as Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said that reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutions would apply to foreign universities setting up campuses in India. Only government education institutions are required by law to provide for reservation quotas; private unaided institutions are not required to set aside seats for SCs, STs and OBCs. Reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutes will be applicable to the foreign institutes. There will be no discrimination, Mr. Sibal said. Mr. Sibal said that he favours 100 per cent ownership of the Indian campuses by the foreign universities, a clear indication that the Indian campuses of foreign universities are likely to be private entities. This would mean that the campuses of these foreign education providers are likely to be exempt from adhering to reservation laws.

The Cabinet is expected to take up the legislation allowing foreign universities and education providers to set up campuses in India shortly. Mr. Sibal said that some well known foreign universities had already approached the Ministry with proposal for setting up of campuses. The minister hopes that the foreign universities may start operations by next year. Foreign education providers will be required to take clearance from the accreditation committee for quality control before being allowed to set up campuses in India. All foreign universities will be required to be accredited in their country of origin and be in existence for at least 10 years before setting up campus in India. Mr. Sibal favours the idea of foreign universities having 100 per cent ownership of their campuses in India. If there is 100 per cent ownership of private sector here, why not 100 per cent ownership of foreign universities, the minister said.

The minister accepted that that there would be objections from political parties to the provision of 100 per cent ownership to the foreign universities. The Left has been among the most vociferous opponents of the proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. Mr. Sibal said, “There will be objection. There is no process of change without objections. And I welcome objections. I welcome dialogue”.

Foreign education institutes will not be allowed to repatriate surplus income generated at their campuses in India. The surplus has to be spent for the expansion of the campus within the country. To ensure that no fly-by-night operators come to India, the aspiring institutes will have to go through the accreditation procedure of the country. The foreign education providers will be regulated by University Grants Commission (UGC) and any successive regulatory body.

Source: The Economic Times

Relief for private foreign universities: Quota law not binding

Foreign universities and education providers setting up campuses in India are unlikely to be required to provide for reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBC). Even as Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said that reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutions would apply to foreign universities setting up campuses in India. Only government education institutions are required by law to provide for reservation quotas; private unaided institutions are not required to set aside seats for SCs, STs and OBCs. Reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutes will be applicable to the foreign institutes. There will be no discrimination, Mr. Sibal said. Mr. Sibal said that he favours 100 per cent ownership of the Indian campuses by the foreign universities, a clear indication that the Indian campuses of foreign universities are likely to be private entities. This would mean that the campuses of these foreign education providers are likely to be exempt from adhering to reservation laws.

The Cabinet is expected to take up the legislation allowing foreign universities and education providers to set up campuses in India shortly. Mr. Sibal said that some well known foreign universities had already approached the Ministry with proposal for setting up of campuses. The minister hopes that the foreign universities may start operations by next year. Foreign education providers will be required to take clearance from the accreditation committee for quality control before being allowed to set up campuses in India. All foreign universities will be required to be accredited in their country of origin and be in existence for at least 10 years before setting up campus in India. Mr. Sibal favours the idea of foreign universities having 100 per cent ownership of their campuses in India. If there is 100 per cent ownership of private sector here, why not 100 per cent ownership of foreign universities, the minister said.

The minister accepted that that there would be objections from political parties to the provision of 100 per cent ownership to the foreign universities. The Left has been among the most vociferous opponents of the proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. Mr. Sibal said, “There will be objection. There is no process of change without objections. And I welcome objections. I welcome dialogue”.

Foreign education institutes will not be allowed to repatriate surplus income generated at their campuses in India. The surplus has to be spent for the expansion of the campus within the country. To ensure that no fly-by-night operators come to India, the aspiring institutes will have to go through the accreditation procedure of the country. The foreign education providers will be regulated by University Grants Commission (UGC) and any successive regulatory body.

Source: The Economic Times

Relief for private foreign universities: Quota law not binding

Foreign universities and education providers setting up campuses in India are unlikely to be required to provide for reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBC). Even as Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said that reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutions would apply to foreign universities setting up campuses in India. Only government education institutions are required by law to provide for reservation quotas; private unaided institutions are not required to set aside seats for SCs, STs and OBCs. Reservation laws as applicable to Indian institutes will be applicable to the foreign institutes. There will be no discrimination, Mr. Sibal said. Mr. Sibal said that he favours 100 per cent ownership of the Indian campuses by the foreign universities, a clear indication that the Indian campuses of foreign universities are likely to be private entities. This would mean that the campuses of these foreign education providers are likely to be exempt from adhering to reservation laws.

The Cabinet is expected to take up the legislation allowing foreign universities and education providers to set up campuses in India shortly. Mr. Sibal said that some well known foreign universities had already approached the Ministry with proposal for setting up of campuses. The minister hopes that the foreign universities may start operations by next year. Foreign education providers will be required to take clearance from the accreditation committee for quality control before being allowed to set up campuses in India. All foreign universities will be required to be accredited in their country of origin and be in existence for at least 10 years before setting up campus in India. Mr. Sibal favours the idea of foreign universities having 100 per cent ownership of their campuses in India. If there is 100 per cent ownership of private sector here, why not 100 per cent ownership of foreign universities, the minister said.

The minister accepted that that there would be objections from political parties to the provision of 100 per cent ownership to the foreign universities. The Left has been among the most vociferous opponents of the proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. Mr. Sibal said, “There will be objection. There is no process of change without objections. And I welcome objections. I welcome dialogue”.

Foreign education institutes will not be allowed to repatriate surplus income generated at their campuses in India. The surplus has to be spent for the expansion of the campus within the country. To ensure that no fly-by-night operators come to India, the aspiring institutes will have to go through the accreditation procedure of the country. The foreign education providers will be regulated by University Grants Commission (UGC) and any successive regulatory body.

Source: The Economic Times