The art of getting FII accounts

The din is rising. The clamor from brokerages to get FII accounts. At every turn as I meet a head honcho of a brokerage, they have one question to ask – can you give us some FII account?

Now this puzzles me. I have a lot of friends that work for FIIs. I come across them when I meet them on business and at parties. They have the same interests as we have and they are ready to listen to all that talk that makes sense. No big deal. Why make them such “in-demand” exotic beings?

I made friends in FII circles because of just straight talk. Many of them started out as my blog readers, enjoyed or debated what I wrote. They became friends anyway. I don’t tell them what they’d like to hear or ask for their account. I just listen to them, digest their needs and share my personal philosophies about investing. Perhaps they enjoyed it, they’re still my friends.

But if you want those contacts, well, I suggest you do it the old fashioned way. Get your existing clients to make some money and have them walk the talk…. Or just let me do it for you…!!
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A quick and clean surgery...?

He may not have gotten the coverage like a Chris Cox gets. But M.Damodaran, Chairman of SEBI is no less charismatic.

He stood his ground on restricting the use of participatory notes (P-notes) by foreign institutional investors, but made two important announcements.

The first is to allow proprietary sub-accounts of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) — i.e. sub-accounts that are formed to invest their own money — to issue P-notes provided they apply to register themselves with SEBI in the next 24 hours.

The second is to put registration of FIIs on the fast track. Addressing FII representatives from all over the world through a video conference, Damodaran, however, said the issue of offshore derivative instruments by other sub-accounts of FIIs will not be possible after the changes it proposed last week come into force.

Hope Damodran performed this surgery quick and clean, like he fixed the mess at UTI. Now will the market get back to its surge up north…?
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