Marking its entry in the commodity futures exchange business, Reliance ADAG firm Reliance Capital on Monday said its exchange business unit has bought 26% stake in Indian Commodity Exchange Ltd (ICEX) from Indiabulls Financial Services for an undisclosed sum.
Reliance Capital’s wholly owned subsidiary Reliance Exchangenext (R Next) has acquired 26% stake in ICEX from Indiabulls Financial Services, the company said in a statement. Prior to the acquisition, Indiabulls Financial Services held 40% stake in ICEX that is now reduced to 14%. The acquisition has been made by the R Next after receiving necessary regulatory approvals for completing the transfer and being an anchor investor in ICEX, the filing added.
“We see a huge potential in the commodity market space. With this, we plan to develop an integrated and transparent national electronic commodity market place,” R Next President and CEO Rajnikant Patel said.
The move comes about three months after the commodity markets regulator FMC had given approval to the Anil Ambani led Group to acquire 26% stake in Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX) from one of its promoters, Indiabulls, in September last year.
R Next commenced operations in late 2009 by setting up a national commodity spot exchange through its arm Reliance Spot Exchange. ICEX, a national-level commodity bourse started in late 2009, offers futures trading in 18 commodities, including bullion, metals and agricultural items, and has been promoted jointly by Indiabulls and trading giant MMTC, which has 26% stake in the bourse.
There are 23 commodity exchanges in the country, including five national bourses, whose cumulative turnover crossed Rs 100 trillion-mark in 2010. New entrant ICEX clocked business of Rs 3,78,006 crore (Rs 3,780 billion) in 2010, which was higher than the turnover of the oldest national bourse, NMCE. Shares of RCap were trading 2.01% higher at Rs 681.50 a piece, while Indiabulls was up 2.67% to quote at Rs 178.20 in the afternoon trade on the BSE.