By IANS,
Kolkata: Online broking outfit ICICI Securities does not see any industry-wide consolidation among brokerage houses, company executive director Anup Bagchi said here Wednesday.
Bagchi was referring to reports that Edelweiss Capital, a listed brokerage house, is set to acquire the unlisted Anagram Stock Broking Ltd.
“If the deal between Edelweiss and Anagram happens, it would be a one-off event. The former has been looking for a retail chain asset which Anagram has,” Bagchi told reporters on the sidelines of a press meet here.
According to him, there was little value in acquiring a retail brokerage chain because there was no guarantee that this would lead to the client base expanding.
“Most large investors deal with multiple brokers and so acquiring a brokerage house wouldn’t necessarily lead to addition of new clients,” Bagchi said, adding that his firm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICICI Bank, was not looking at acquisitions.
“With a retail client base of 20 lakh and a 14 percent share of the market in terms of demat holdings, we don’t have plans to acquire any brokerage chain.”