Finance Continuum @ SJMSOM

The much awaited day of finance continuum came, and left with great imprint in our mind. The grandiose and magniloquence of the event, outreached our expectations by manifold.
The event started with our esteemed keynote speaker, Shailesh J Mehta, taking on the dais. His eloquence on “Financing the India Growth” left us spellbound. He started off with sharing how India is in vogue in west, be it bollywood, restaurant, weeding or fashion. He further added that without a India connection or Indian entrepreneur on board in a startup, it is difficult of convince a VC in silicon valley about funding. He classified the strengths which will be our growth drivers in days to come. The young working population, successful diasporas, great English linguistic skills, change in mindset from conservatism to consumption. But, showing the rosy side he did cautious us of many impediments that lies on the road. He pointed out the chocking infrastructure in our cities, red tape hassles and hostile geo-political situation. He made us think by saying, believe in principle based economy not rule based economy. Those days of Govt Control and authority are gone. He instigated spark in us by saying lot of potential is there to be untapped and we future generation have to make best out of it.
This speech was followed by panel discussion .The discussion opened with the concern on crisis created Sub Prime Mortgage Rate. The crisis was created by unprecedented liquidity leading to investments in risky assets. But Mr Saurabh(VP, HSBC) comforted us by saying every crisis gives buying opportunity. Then the discussion shifted to underdeveloped debt market. Mr Jayanto added, lack of liquidity in debt market hampers implementation of marked to market in debt and thereby effecting the price discovery mechanism. They strongly voiced for the need of better credit and bond market in India. Need of debt currently are infrastructure, products and participants. Mr Vikash(MD, Carlyl) pointed out the pain areas of bond market are pension and public investments not allowed, need for proper demarcation of roles and responsibilities between RBI & SEBI, trading is not user friendly and lack of uniformity in inter-state stamp duty. They felt we need to come out of vanilla offering in bond market and initiate new and innovative products. Mr Vikash added FII investments in bond market without caps will be welcome thing. The discussion then shifted from debt market to equity market. Mr Gaurav(MD, Rothschild) added how post Maruti IPO, billion $ new offerings have become natural. This talked about the increasing investor confidence. They then touched upon the biggest investment thirsty sector, infrastructure. They felt PP, BOT, BOOT models have to be created. They also felt further inflows for investment can come from FII by implementing capital account convertibility. Last part of the discussion focused on financing SME. They felt it can be best implemented by developing affective and efficient bond market.
The post lunch session was started by Mr. Anup Kapadia(VP, Rothschild). He gave us an exhaustive analysis of statistical analysis of India growth story. Since opening up of economy he divided India’s economic journey into six phases-Liberalization(91-96), Asian Crisis(97-99), Y2K(99-01), WTO(01-03), India Shining(04-06), Global India(06-07). He applauded the chutzpah by Tata Steel on acquiring Corus. He then explained the case study of Bharati and its corporate financing strategy over the years.
The much eagerly and anxiously awaited evening fall soon. The expectation and euphoria could be guessed by the huge build up in audience. Why should it not be, as it was the time for ace investor Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala(Bull) to take on the dais. He started by sharing his philosophy- “To win all wars despite losing many a battle”. He stressed on the importance of reading, experiencing and learning. He attributed a part of his success to his value pick of PSU jackpots back in 2000. He advised for resisting temptations instead buy right, hold tight and exit in frenzy. The days ahead he plans to devout for philanthropic cause. Rare Enterprise director, Mr. Manish, described him as independent thinker who is passionate about equities. To him means remain more important than the end. His golden quote “Be greedy, but long term greedy-understand the importance of time”. Giving the future guidelines, he believed despite the minor jitters of global crisis, he strongly felt within a span of 5 years Sensex will scale 25000. The time with him flew in flicker and soon it was time to bid him bye and close this years continuum.

Best of Luck!!!!

Black Thumb!!!! This is how my thumb looks.
It happened on our photo shoot for placement brochure. The day was grandiose with all of us daintily dressed in our extravagant business suite. With sweltering heat and the very concept of posing before the camera, I was getting jitters. Since my childhood I had faltered very badly in any modeling pose I had tried for my pictures. Either the closed eyes or the open mouth, something or the other had always played the spoil sport in my search for a photogenic picture. Here also after a lot of retakes and to the exasperation of the photographer, something average was managed. Relieved to be back in natural world of expression, I was amazed to see the effort of a girl standing in the photo shoot queue. Immaculately styled hair, shimmering carmine gloss, crisply tailored suite and complementing it was perfect pair of stilettos. Looking at her effort that had gone for this shoot I could not resist myself but to wish her “Best of Luck” , with thumb pointing up. Next what happened was unbelievable to my eyes. As she turned back with a smile to react to my compliment, the tragedy struck. She stepped right into a banana peel lying on the floor and making and making a somersault landed 180 degree flat on the ground. For a moment, I could not realize what had happened. While the other guys got busy lifting her I was so shocked that I stood standstill with thumb pointing up.