NASDAQ opens regional liaison office in Bangalore

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, FEB. 12. The NASDAQ Vice President, Mr. Alfred R. Berkeley III, and the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr. S. M. Krishna, today inaugurated the NASDAQ regional liaison office here, one of the few outside the U.S. Mr. Ghanshyam Dass will be here as Director, South Asia, to look after the exchange's activities in the region.

NASDAQ, which accounted for 63 per cent of all equity trading in the U.S. in dollar terms, listing nearly 5,000 companies, would provide easier access to U.S. capital for Indian IT companies, Mr. Berkeley said. It would also provide better service to companies such as Infosys, Rediff.com and Satyam Infoway that were already listed. ``The intention is to open a window for more Indian companies and we hope and anticipate they will use this opportunity,'' he added.

NASDAQ had helped IT companies in Israel find U.S. investors and, drawing on this experience, the office here should be able to deliver capital to Indian companies too, Mr. Berkeley said. Indian companies could benefit by going in for transparent disclosures and following the U.S. GAAP accounting norms. An extra effort would be needed to retain U.S. investors as a high degree of trust was involved in transactions between the entrepreneur and investor, he said.

NASDAQ trading provided for high volumes with low transaction costs and fast delivery because there was competition and no closely held market information, Mr. Berkeley explained. As there was no ``monopoly trading'', the top 20 companies listed benefited from one of the lowest trading costs in any market and investors were assured of fast delivery, most retail orders being executed in an average of five seconds. NASDAQ magazine, which reached 250 money managers, would also feature Indian companies.

Answering questions, the NASDAQ Vice President said the question of the exchange itself going public was a policy decision that could not be made in a hurry. Bangalore was chosen as the location for a regional office in the wake of the office in Japan having enlisted 50 companies and a ``similar high level of service can be expected by Indian companies'', he said. The U.S. market fluctuations and economic slowdown were ``cyclical phenomena'', he commented. Infosys Technologies was the best example of transparent accounting practices and the company published its results in eight different languages, attracting more global investors. NASDAQ was entering India with a long-term view, he said.

Mr. Krishna welcomed NASDAQ to Bangalore. The exchange listed 90 per cent of all information technology companies and 96 per cent of all biotechnology companies in the world and had an annual trading volume of $20 trillion. After its success in attracting the best of the IT industry, biotechnology-based businesses were also catching up with Bangalore, he said.

Mr. Patrick Sutch, NASDAQ Vice President, Asia-Pacific, said Mr. Ghanshyam Dass, who will head the Bangalore office, had a career of 25 years in international banking.

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