News: DLF clones may sneak in via IPO barriers
(BD 19/05/2006) Mumbai - As the investing public prepares to commit itself to the mega DLF IPO, a word of caution is advised. There are dozens of DLF “clones” who are lining up IPOs and private placements. This has always been a feature of the Indian capital market whereby lightweights tend to ride piggyback on the industry major by ensnaring unwary investors with low priced offerings.
Sebi is yet to evolve an effective entry barrier for such pretenders and the onus is on the investor to sift the wheat from the chaff. There are very few Indian realty and construction companies that match up to DLF’s size and abilities. They are limited to Hirnandani, K. Raheja, Unitech, Prestige and Sobha. Tatas, L&T, Godrej and GE Shipping also have subsidiary construction and housing companies that are credible and known for their delivery.
Most of India’s builders are either fronts for politicians or the underworld and are always looking for ways and means to grab land through muscle power. Professional managers hardly consider a career with such companies as a viable option. However, the arrival of foreign realty brokers like CBRE, Jones Lang Lasalle, Colliers Jardine, Knight Frank, Trammel Crow and Cushman Wakefield has cleaned up the realty market significantly as these firms carry out a thorough due diligence prior to recommending properties that they associate with.
While picking realty IPO, it might be a good idea to investigate the extent of the promoters’ association with one or more of these MNC realty brokers. That would work as a robust filter in the investment matrix.
METRO OBSESSION
A majority of call centres in the US are not located in key metros, but if one looks at India, they are invariably metro-centric. The Karnataka government has been persuading both MNC and Indian call centres to consider alternate centres in inner cities like Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli and Dharwad, but the response has been very unenthusiastic. Other than MphasiS, which has set up a unit in Mangalore, no other well-known call centre has explored these cities.
The spillover from Mumbai to Pune is just about gathering momentum after sustained efforts by succeeding state governments, but the critical mass is yet to build in the Peshwa city. Senior managers of call centres cite the reluctance of their younger employees to move base away from the westernised lifestyle of metros as the biggest stumbling block to a potential move to non-metros. Intriguingly, lifestyle issues are more relevant in the call centre industry than professional work ethic.
An IAS or IPS officer spends the major part of his first ten years in villages and suburban centres without flinching from responsibility. Then why is it that a much less educationally evolved call centre employee can’t function in a Hubli or a Coimbatore? Call centre managements need to do a serious reality check about their management ethos.
QUOTA QUOTIENT
As the quota issue threatens to boil over across the country with even OBC students protesting the proposed legislation, it is perhaps time to reflect about the infirmities of our electoral process. It is eminently possible for an uneducated and criminal politician from an extremely backward and conservative constituency to aspire for the Prime Minister’s chair and even secure it, given the mathematics of our electoral system and particularly in the absence of inner-party democracy of most of our political formations.
Sebi is yet to evolve an effective entry barrier for such pretenders and the onus is on the investor to sift the wheat from the chaff. There are very few Indian realty and construction companies that match up to DLF’s size and abilities. They are limited to Hirnandani, K. Raheja, Unitech, Prestige and Sobha. Tatas, L&T, Godrej and GE Shipping also have subsidiary construction and housing companies that are credible and known for their delivery.
Most of India’s builders are either fronts for politicians or the underworld and are always looking for ways and means to grab land through muscle power. Professional managers hardly consider a career with such companies as a viable option. However, the arrival of foreign realty brokers like CBRE, Jones Lang Lasalle, Colliers Jardine, Knight Frank, Trammel Crow and Cushman Wakefield has cleaned up the realty market significantly as these firms carry out a thorough due diligence prior to recommending properties that they associate with.
While picking realty IPO, it might be a good idea to investigate the extent of the promoters’ association with one or more of these MNC realty brokers. That would work as a robust filter in the investment matrix.
METRO OBSESSION
A majority of call centres in the US are not located in key metros, but if one looks at India, they are invariably metro-centric. The Karnataka government has been persuading both MNC and Indian call centres to consider alternate centres in inner cities like Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli and Dharwad, but the response has been very unenthusiastic. Other than MphasiS, which has set up a unit in Mangalore, no other well-known call centre has explored these cities.
The spillover from Mumbai to Pune is just about gathering momentum after sustained efforts by succeeding state governments, but the critical mass is yet to build in the Peshwa city. Senior managers of call centres cite the reluctance of their younger employees to move base away from the westernised lifestyle of metros as the biggest stumbling block to a potential move to non-metros. Intriguingly, lifestyle issues are more relevant in the call centre industry than professional work ethic.
An IAS or IPS officer spends the major part of his first ten years in villages and suburban centres without flinching from responsibility. Then why is it that a much less educationally evolved call centre employee can’t function in a Hubli or a Coimbatore? Call centre managements need to do a serious reality check about their management ethos.
QUOTA QUOTIENT
As the quota issue threatens to boil over across the country with even OBC students protesting the proposed legislation, it is perhaps time to reflect about the infirmities of our electoral process. It is eminently possible for an uneducated and criminal politician from an extremely backward and conservative constituency to aspire for the Prime Minister’s chair and even secure it, given the mathematics of our electoral system and particularly in the absence of inner-party democracy of most of our political formations.
posted by InCar Group Press Room at 18:54
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