Brokerage, MF top bosses go places

Leading brokerages and mutual fund houses are busy churning their portfolios, with the markets coming back to life. But they are also seeing churning at the top.

Along with the market, a host of top-level executives at these firms are going places, literally, and have started responding to the call from headhunters like never before. The fallout has been predictable. In the last few months, high profile names such as Keshav Sanghi, Devesh Kumar and Krishnamurthy Vijayan have moved.

Kumar, till recently the managing director of Centrum Stock Broking, is joining Fortune Financial Services, a listed capital market intermediary. He is tipped to be the group CEO and would be responsible for expanding Fortune's broking and investment banking operations.

Vijayan, who quit JPMorgan Asset Management as its executive chairman, will join IDBI Mutual Fund. When contacted, he declined to comment. Sanghi will join Citi. He was the CEO of Reliance Equity International. He could not be contacted.

Similarly, Ajay Bhatia recently moved from Macquarie to Indiabulls Securities as the president of its capital markets division. Jayesh Parekh, who was the head of sales at Motilal Oswal Securities has joined Abu Dhabi Investment Authority as fund manager. Four senior people have also joined the investment banking team of Emkay Global Financial Services. Fund managers Promodh Gupta and Pankaj Tiberwal have quit Principal Mutual Fund.

Market players said that while people movement has been on for some time now, it is only recently that even the top brass has started moving. They said the upsurge in the market sentiment has been the primary reason that has led to increased business volume for most brokerages.

"This is a good time to step on the gas and we, too, have been doing selective hiring to strengthen our capital market side," said Abhay Bhalerao, director, Equirus Capital, a boutique investment bank operating in the mid-market segment. Equirus recently expanded its top brass by hiring Abhijeet Biswas as director focusing on industrial, energy, health care and FMCG.

Ruth Singh, who heads human resources at Emkay Global Financial Services, said that the firm was also beefing up its capital market division. "We are expanding our ECM (equity capital market) team and have recently got senior people on board for our investment banking division," said Singh.

The growth in business volume is also seen from the impressive profit growth registered by some of the listed brokerage entities. India Infoline's third quarter consolidated net profit has almost doubled to Rs 59.51 crore when compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex has nearly doubled in the last one year, moving from 9,000 levels to the current 17,000.