Heard on the Street

Polls won't stop Amar Singh, the investor

With polls around the corner, one would have thought it natural for politicians to start encashing their stock market investments rather than making any. But Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh seems to be of the view that it may not be a bad idea to make a token purchase in his company, at this juncture.

Mr Singh is chairman of Energy Development Company (EDC), a BSE-listed company. Between March 13-18, Mr Singh and his wife Pankaja Kumari Singh have together bought a total of 1,06,680 EDC shares, of which Mr Singh's purchases amount to 1,700 shares. Total purchases represent 0.4% of the company's equity base.

On Monday, the stock rose 1% to Rs 42.6, recording a weekly gain of 11% and monthly gain of 18% on BSE. EDC is into electricity generation and operates a 9-megawatt hydro electric plant at Harangi and a 1.5-MW wind mill at Hassan district in Karnataka. Apart from the Singhs, the company counts Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan among its shareholders. Mr Bachchan held a 3.6% stake as on December 31, 2008, according to a shareholding pattern filed with BSE.

Funds, not investors, gain from green moves

Environment preservation and saving trees could be the last thing in the minds of fund houses that request investors to agree for electronic (or email) statements, report and other statutory information. As a matter of fact, fund houses save anything between Rs 7 and Rs 12 (to print a statement and courier it) on every communication sent, if the 'environment-sensitive' investor agrees for electronic options.

"Mailing expenses are usually charged to expense ratio of the fund. Ideally, unitholders agreeing for electronic mailing options should incur lower expense ratio. But not many fund houses are willing to oblige their investors in this regard.

They'll lose a good revenue source if they let investors know this," said the channel head of a domestic fund house.

(Contributed by Vijay Gurav & Shailesh Menon)