StanChart India beefs up shares advisory operations

South Asia CEO wants to tap share selling that has generated $3.11 billion this year.

South Asia Chief Executive Officer Neeraj Swaroop said, "The big piece missing in the wholesale side was equity capital market-related activity, which we are bringing in."

"We will, in 2010, be in the equity space because that's one capability that we were not offering our wholesale clients," he added in a report in Bloomberg.

The additional service in India, its second-largest contributor to profit after Hong Kong, will help the London-based lender tap a market where share sales climbed to at least a five-year high in the third quarter. More than 30 firms are awaiting approval from the regulator for new share sales after companies raised $3.11 billion this year.

The company is getting into the shares-advisory business after it acquired a 49 percent stake in Mumbai-based brokerage UTI Securities Ltd., which also offers investment banking and wealth management services, in January 2008, and in Hong Kong-based institutional broker Cazenove Asia Ltd. in January.