SBI Caps managed to win the award to place 15 million shares among domestic players last week - one of the largest private placement deal in recent times. SBI Cap's managing director Virendra Kumar said the assignment will be completed within next 15 days.

SBI Caps also has a series of public issues lined up for it the next four months. "We are happy to have this kind of rich harvest during the current fiscal,'' he said adding that apart from the merchant banking the investment banking arm of the State Bank Of India (SBI) is actively pursuing some of the mergers and acquisitions proposals.

Refusing to spell out the finer details of any merger and amalgamation deal, Kumar said the bank is still working on a number of proposals.

"We are prepared to be very competitive in this sector which hasbeen identified as one of the thrust area of the business along with privatisation programme of state-owned units and syndicating funds for infrastructure projects.'' he said.