London, Sept.25: Lord Digby Jones, Minister for Trade and Investment, and Vicki Treadell, British Deputy High Commissioner, in association with the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), are hosting a networking lunch in Mumbai exploring India-UK business partnership opportunities.

The CBC, in association with the London Stock Exchange, is organising workshops in India targeted at companies that are seeking to raise capital overseas.

India’s GDP is growing at over nine percent per annum creating an excessive need for capital. With a strong desire to go global, Indian companies are progressively looking to broaden their investor base.

The London Stock Exchange’s main market and particularly Alternative Investments Market (AIM) offer a unique and compelling opportunity for Indian companies to fulfil this need. The workshops will offer a comprehensive insight on the capital raising process on the AIM market to interested parties.

In terms of capital raised, the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange was the 6th largest market in the world last year. It raised more capital than major Exchanges like Tokyo, Frankfurt, Toronto and Sydney.

In fact with 27 billion dollars of capital raised, it fell only 70 million dollars short of NASDAQ’s total for companies from over 20 countries. Indian companies raised an impressive 10 percent of the total on AIM last year, ensuring India was the largest country of issuance other than the UK.

Speaking about the event, Dr Mohan Kaul, CBC Director General said, “The event will highlight the various market products that are available and highlight the main difference between the AIM and the main market. More and more Indian companies are listing on the AIM. This will give Indian companies an opportunity to get a good insight on what is in the offing.”

“AIM is not a general financing alternative. We believe the Indian capital market is deep and efficient enough to meet all general financing needs of Indian companies — they don’t need our market,” Ibukun Adebayo who handles India and international business of AIM has said.

The event will also address issues like characteristics of the investor base, size of listing and at what point a company should consider an international float. Another important point to be addressed will be how can London and Mumbai forge closer links as major financial service centres of the world?

Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, Chief Executive, Cobra Beer and Chairman UK-India Business Council, and Lord Jones of Birmingham, Minister of State for Trade and Investment (DBERR), will address the topic of ‘Growing a company from start into major corporations’ and ‘How can London and Mumbai come closer as major financial services centres of the world?’ (With inputs from ANI)