Indian companies showing interest in Singapore listing

SINGAPORE, Dec 14 (Xinhua): The Royal Bank of Scotland has said that there is an increase in interest by Indian companies to list their shares on the Singapore Exchange. Some big deals may be in the works, local broadcaster Channel NewsAsia reported yesterday. Shares of Indian companies must be listed in their home country before they can list in Singapore. India now has about 18,000 domestically listed firms. SGX has continued to see strong interest in Indian companies listing REITs and Business Trusts. There are now some 10 Indian global depository receipts (GDRs) listed on the Singapore Exchange, though investors have been shy about investing in the global depository receipts as they are not stocks. "It would probably be more ideal to have an equity listing, a straight stock listing, rather than have a GDR listing where you'd find the liquidity vanish and a lot of fund managers ... don't like illiquid stuff, illiquid counters," said Dilip Kadambi, head of equity capital markets for India and southeast Asia. The interest has grown for Indian companies to list in Singapore with possible deals ranging from between 15 million to 600 million US dollars, he said. However, there are only three Indian listings on the Singapore Exchange thus far. To get more Indian companies to list in Singapore, the Singapore bourse has appointed Neena Prasad as senior vice president and head of listings for India starting from November 1 this year.