Exl Services to be 8th Indian company listed on Nasdaq

Mysore, July 31 (UNI) Business Process Outsourcing company Exl Services will be the eighth Indian company to be listed on Nasdaq, the premier stock exchange of New York.

Revealing this to newspersons here today, Nasdaq President and CEO Bob Greifeld exuded confidence that more Indian companies would list in the prestigious exchange, throwing up the opportunity to tap liquidity in the US capital market. He, however, declined to divulge the names of prospective companies.

Besides the eight companies that had been listed, 80 per cent of the operations of 75 listed companies were done out of India and 300 companies listed in the exchange have significant Indian presence, he said.

Mr Greifeld, who was in Mysore for the remote ringing of the bell to mark the opening of the day's trading in the Nasdaq exchange by Infosys, said it was an honour to mark the achievement of Infosys which stood as a shining example of how a Nasdaq listed company should be.

To a question, he said post 9/11 terrorist attacks, investors world over were resilient to any shock and the recent crisis in West Asia or the increasing oil prices would not have any bearing on IPO listings.

Mr Greifeld said the second quarter of 2006 saw as many as 80 companies going in for IPOs through NASDAQ and last year the total number of IPOs was 160. The first quarter of this year saw listing by 65 companies. This trend had not been witnessed during the last five years.

Encouraging dual listing, he said Indian companies, besides going for IPO in the domestic market, should also seek global listing to tap liquidity in capital outside the country.

UNI VK GD GM1825