Merchant Banking outfit JM Morgan Stanley on wednesday announced the appointment of Premal Parekh as executive director (ED) and head of its mergers and acquisitions (m&a) operations.

"M&A will represent a significant business opportunity for financial services firms in India and Premal's appointment reflects our commitment to build a strong M&A franchise here," JM Morgan Stanley chairman Nimesh Kampani said in a statement. Parekh had been the director of the financial advisory division at Pricewaterhousecoopers and before that, director/partner with Coopers and Lybrand, the statement said.

Promoters buy shares from IDBI

The promoters of Budget Hotel have bought back 15,000 shares of the face value of Rs 100 each held by IDBI at a price of Rs 215 per share. The sale transaction constitutes over 1 per cent of the paid up capital of the company, said a press release issued by IDBI on May 25.

Sundaram MF to pay 6.5% dividend

SundaramMutual Fund has declared a dividend of 6.5 per cent (Rs 0.65 per unit of Rs 10) in the open-ended income fund, `Sundaram Bond Saver' (SBS). This follows the 7 per cent dividend declared during November 1998. Addressing press persons T P Raman, managing director, Sundaram Newton AMC Limited said that the unit holders under the `Dividend Option' of Sundaram Bond Saver as of today (May 26) were entitled to receive the income. He attributed the fall in the dividend rate to the decrease in the interest rates in the economy. The open ended income fund, SBS had generated a return of 14.3 per cent (an increase of Rs 1.46 per unit) for the year ended March 31 1999. Over the last three months the inflows into SBS have improved to Rs 15 crore. The overall corpus fund has increased to Rs 60 crore (showing a jump of about 35 per cent after the budget) with Rs 31 crore from the debt fund and Rs 29 crore from the equity fund. Tax sops announced in the recent Finance Bill has made investment in SBS very attractive vis-a-visinvestments in bonds/FD's for all tax paying individuals, he said and added that the diversified portfolio in an income fund would ensure that the risks were much lower than that of investing in a single company.

Skindia GDR index up 1.2 per cent

The Skindia gdr Index representing gdr of 17 actively traded companies gained smartly by 1.20 per cent from 747.74 points to 756.69 points on May 25. The Skindia gdr Index premium also increased by 6.93 per cent from 12.89 per cent to 13.78 per cent while the Skindia gdr Index p/e ratio moved up slightly by 1.36 per cent to 29.77 from 29.37.