Money Matters' Sharma moved up fast in shadowy world of bonds

MUMBAI: Those who know him say Rajesh Sharma began his career in the financial market from a hole-in-the-wall office at Fort in the late 90s. A chartered accountant by profession, Mr Sharma’s expertise in those days was to find buyers for large blocks of shares of mid- and small-sized companies.

He is said to have been well-networked with important fund managers, a prerequisite for anybody looking to broker equity deals. In 2001-02, Mr Sharma is said to have befriended an official at a retail broking house which was then just beginning to spread its wings. Talk is that this official convinced some of his high net worth and re-tail clients to buy the shares that Mr Sharma was looking to offload. Yet, Money Matters, a non-banking financial company, promoted by Mr Sharma, specialised in helping firms raise money through debt is-sues.

A presentation on Money Matters’ website says it has placed $9.5 billion of debt in the past two years, and counts the Adanis, the Tatas, Reliance ADAG, HCC and Indiabulls among its key clients. LIC, the parent of LIC Housing, is also one of its top clients.

The loan and bond market, unlike equity, is a more shadowy world. In recent years, there has been a dramatic growth of little known, un-heard of brokers which have hogged the debt syndication league table. Money Matters is one such firm. It became a big player in the bond market after Pawan Bansal, a former Axis Bank official and an old hand in the fixed income segment, joined it.

Later, Mr Bansal parted ways with Mr Sharma to set up his own firm, Altius Finserv. Some of the intermediaries are also involved in placing corporate bonds to domestic institutional investors like insurance firms, provident funds and banks.