KSL announces plans to foray into Retail Financial Services

Mumbai, Jan 3 (UNI) Khandwala Securities Limited (KSL), a specialized Institutional Dealing and Investment Banking firm, today announced its plans to step into the fast growing Retail Financial Services space.

At a special Board Meeting held by KSL earlier today, a decision was taken to set up a subsidiary company for the proposed new business venture. To be headquartered in Mumbai, the proposed business venture is targeted to commence its business operations by the end of financial year 2007-08, the release issued by KSL said.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr Paresh Khandwala, Managing Director KSL stated, ''Financial services industry in India is undergoing a paradigm shift in terms of market and product choices available to investors. With the penetration level of retail investment participation in the country being under 5 per cent, the Retail Financial Services space offers a compelling opportunity for KSL to establish a niche presence for itself in this fast growing market segment.'' Mr Khandwala said ''We are confident that KSL's market knowledge through its intelligent research, high-end analysis and superior execution combined with its domain expertise of the Indian securities market, will deliver a superior value proposition to the investment community through this retail venture.'' He said KSL has already started receiving expression of interests from strategic investors for the proposed Retail Financial Services initiative, which would be finalised in due course of time.

''KSL's Retail venture will be led by a team of proficient domain specialists with extensive experience in designing technology-intensive market offerings to cater to the unique demands of the Indian investors. In the new market order, innovative business offerings and superior technology framework will be the key service differentiating factors and our retail venture will be designed to emerge as the preferred choice to attract and service individual investors'', he said KSL, through this venture, will endeavour to build a Next Generation Retail Services platform that seeks to build a complete value chain of offerings across the Financial Life Cycle for individual investors. It proposes to achieve through a judicious combination of asset mix, product portfolio and market access for an integrated Retail Financial Services offering.

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