Sabre Capital shelves AMC plan with Samir Arora

Sabre Capital has put its plans for forming an asset management company in association with former Alliance Capital's head of Asian emerging markets Samir Arora on the backburner.

"Given that Samir Arora has got implicated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, Sabre has had to review its plans. Currently, they are on backburner and once the Centurion Bank transaction is completed, we will review it," said Rajiv Maliwal, managing director of Sabre Capital.

Sabre had in August announced plans to float a new AMC along with Arora.

Arora was subsequently barred by Sebi from the capital markets for alleged insider trading in Digital Globalsoft, while he was with Alliance Capital.

"We will probably look at a greenfield project. However, if there is any candidate which is right for a takeover, we will look at it," said Maliwal.

Centurion Bank could be the partner for any AMC operations of Sabre in the country. "The AMC is a high potential business. Centurion Bank will have the first right of refusal when we enter into the business. The Centurion Bank board can decide on whether it wants to get into the AMC business," said Sabre's chairman Rana Talwar. He, however, added that Sabre does not have any concrete plans on AMC right now.