Foreign institutional investors from countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Taiwan are aggressively looking at investing in the Indian stock markets.
Many funds from these countries have recently registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
According to data available with Business Standard, the proportion of new FIIs registering with the Sebi from traditional countries such as the US, and the UK is on the decline.
From 80 per cent in 2003, the proportion of FIIs from traditional countries of the total FII registrations has gone down to less than 50 per cent in 2005.
According to Sebi data, pension funds and large size institutional investors are getting registered with the Sebi. The Asia Debt Recovery Company, Rolls-Royce Pension Fund, California Public Employees' Retirement System, Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, Non-Teacher School Employee Retirement System of Missouri, Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund and Public School Retirement System of Missouri are among the funds, which have recently registered with the Sebi.
As a result, the total number of FIIs registered with the Sebi has increased from 637 in January 2005 to 675 as on March 14, 2005.
Narender Nagpal, head of equity, Deutsche Equities, said, "The interest in Indian equities has reached non-traditional countries such as those in continental Europe, Japan, and Australia. India is one the fastest growing economies among its Asian peers and global investors do not want to miss the strong growth potential. Our recent investor conference in Mumbai, too, met with a huge success, with nearly one-third of the participating fund managers were first-time investors."
Deutsche Securities recently held an investor conference in Mumbai with over 200 investors as participants.
Andrew Holland, chief administrative officer and executive vice-president of research at DSP Merill Lynch, said, "Since early January, nearly 350-400 global investors have attended various investor conferences. Of this, 50 per cent were first time investors, discovering India for the first time. New funds are aggressively looking at opportunities in various growth-oriented sectors. The government had recently relaxed the foreign direct investment guidelines in areas such as retail, real estate, mining and textiles which provides new opportunities."
Since the beginning of 2005, the net FII investments in Indian equities has crossed $3 billion to touch $4 billion, compared with the total investment of $8.52 billion in calendar 2004.
