Showing posts with label FII's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FII's. Show all posts

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Foreign Institutional Investors ( FII )

Institutional investors are organizations which pool large sums of money and invest those sums in securities, real property and other investment assets. They can also include operating companies which decide to invest their profits to some degree in these types of assets.

Typical investors include banks, insurance companies, retirement or pension funds, hedge funds, investment advisors and mutual funds. Their role in the economy is to act as highly specialized investors on behalf of others. For instance, an ordinary person will have a pension from his employer. The employer gives that person's pension contributions to a fund. The fund will buy shares in a company, or some other financial product. Funds are useful because they will hold a broad portfolio of investments in many companies. This spreads risk, so if one company fails, it will be only a small part of the whole fund's investment.

An institutional investor can have some influence in the management of corporations because it will be entitled to exercise the voting rights in a company. Thus, it can actively engage in corporate governance. Furthermore, because institutional investors have the freedom to buy and sell shares, they can play a large part in which companies stay solvent, and which go under. Influencing the conduct of listed companies, and providing them with capital are all part of the job of investment management.

FII is defined as an institution organized outside of India for the purpose of making investments into the Indian securities market under the regulations prescribed by SEBI. Positive tidings about the Indian economy combined with a fast-growing market have made India an attractive destination for foreign institutional investors.

These investment proposals by the ‘FII s’ include “Overseas pension funds, foreign corporates, individuals, mutual funds, investment trust, asset management company, nominee company, bank, institutional portfolio manager, university funds, endowments, foundations, charitable trusts, charitable societies, a trustee or power of attorney holder incorporated or established outside India proposing to make proprietary investments or investments on behalf of a broad-based fund.

FIIs can invest their own funds as well as invest on behalf of their overseas clients registered as such with SEBI. These client accounts that the FII manages are known as ‘sub-accounts’. A domestic portfolio manager can also register itself as an FII to manage the. funds of sub-accounts

In order to act as a banker to the FIIs, the RBI has designated banks that are authorised to deal with them. The biggest source through which FIIs invest is the issuance of Participatory Notes (P-Notes), which are also known as Offshore Derivatives.