(From left) SBI Mutual Fund MD & CEO Sayed Shahabuddin, Bombay Stock Exchange MD & CEO Rajnikant Patel and National Stock Exchange vice-president S. Srinivasan in Calcutta on Friday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, June 22: The Bombay Stock Exchange is keen to pick up a 5 per cent stake in the Calcutta Stock Exchange, which is in the process of becoming a corporate entity from a brokers’ association.

BSE managing director and chief executive Rajnikant Patel today held talks with T.K. Das, the Sebi-appointed administrator of the CSE, on the status of the proposal submitted by the stock exchange. Patel was in the city today to attend a seminar on integrated risk management in the financial markets, organised by the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.

The CSE had appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to prepare a business revival plan for the bourse and look for strategic investors to complete the corporatisation process. Expressions of interest were also invited. “But we had to abandon the bidding process for selecting strategic investors as we received only a few applications,” said a CSE official. “Instead, an empowered committee of brokers has been formed, which would select the investors through negotiations,” he added.

The CSE had received expressions of interest from West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, West Bengal Industrial Infrastructure Finance Corporation, Allahabad Bank, the United Bank of India and the BSE.

“We have also received a similar proposal from the Multi-Commodity Exchange. However, we are looking at each proposal,” said Binay K. Agarwal, a member of the empowered committee for equity divestment.

Meanwhile, BSE officials met the empowered committee twice in the last two months. The negotiations on pricing of the equity are at an advanced stage.

The BSE also adopted the private placement route to divest its 51 per cent equity to strategic investors such as the Singapore Stock Exchange and Deutsche Bourse to become a corporate entity recently.

The BSE, with a cash reserve of above Rs 1,000 crore, is considering a public issue of its shares in the next 12 months. “We will need capital to grow our business. But, as of now, we have enough cash reserves. We have no immediate plan for an IPO. But, yes, it may be required as and when we need funds for business expansion,” Patel said.

SBIMF plan

SBI Infrastructure Fund has garnered Rs 2,500 crore, said Syed Shahabuddin, managing director and chief executive officer of SBI Mutual Fund. The three-year close-ended equity scheme will reopen for continuous repurchases from July 20. “We are also working on a gold exchange traded fund,” he added.