MC Insider: A brokerage coup, dilemma for edtech unicorn and an unhappy MF honcho

In a bid to expand its broking business, this financial services firm is planning to adopt the acquisition route if whispers on deal street are to be believed. Buzz is that it has a handful of small broking houses on its radar, and is said to have begun preliminary discussions. With newcomers to the stock market flocking to discount brokers, things are increasingly getting tough for the traditional players, especially in a strictly regulated environment. So merge, acquire or perish, is it?

A top honcho at a mutual fund house has been overheard griping about the fickle ways of investors. Despite most of the schemes managed by this fund house figuring in the top rankings in respective categories, inflows have dwindled. That is not a bad thing if the industry has a whole is seeing a similar trend. But in the case of this fund house, some of its direct rivals are reporting good inflows. The fund house has run an advertising campaign to brag about its performance, but investors are not biting. The honcho is scratching his head to figure some way to get customers to his door.
Undercover analysis?

Investor and analyst calls can be dry and boring. But, what if you could spice it up with different ‘identities’? We can’t be too sure whether this analyst does what he does, but anecdotal evidence suggests that he is present in various calls as representing various fund houses! For example, in a consumer-sector company’s call, he might be coming as a representative of Fund A. In an auto-sector company’s call, he might come as a representative of Fund B, and so on. So far, we have seen the said analyst representing three different such fund houses. Whatever his reasons, you have to give it to him for asking super sharp questions that even has company managements impressed.

Wanderlust is the name of the game as Indian tourists spent a staggering $10 billion in overseas travel in the first nine months of the fiscal , according to recent date from the banking regulator . Travel is back with a bang and what better time for this firm to conduct IPO roadshows especially if you belong to the segment. Any guesses ?

Sticking to deal street... after months of keeping the transaction on the backburner, a private equity firm based out a city named after a Frank Sinatra song has apparently sealed a deal in the telecom infra space. But at a revised valuation. Well all's well that ends well , we guess!

This unicorn was put in a tight spot as two clients, who were supposed to just say good things about the former, turned too frank for comfort at a public event. While one client said that they weren't getting enough useful data from the service provider, the second blurted out a key shortcoming of the service provider's platform. Other prospective clients in the audience were quick to pick up on the criticism. Sounding aghast, an executive of the service provider was heard telling people later that both clients had drifted from the script. In fact, they have been long-time customers of the service and bring in revenues worth lakhs of rupees on a regular basis.

An edtech unicorn that has largely stayed away from controversies is in the process of undertaking a massive restructuring exercise. But it wants to keep its image clean. So the company invited three folks from different levels for a gathering so that everything looks normal. These three folks were networking and talking business with investors, other founders and delegates. But a little birdie tells us that two of the three would be soon laid off. "The founder just wanted to invite and spend on these folks to show how caring they are about employees and how difficult it was for them to take this decision" one person said.

Advertising is known to be a people’s business driven by big personalities and bigger egos. Mad Men and all. But a couple of adwallahs have been wondering where have all the personalities gone? They rue that the personalities era of advertising is long gone and now creatives are colourless (not ego-less) and lack that certain something which ad leaders of previous eras had. They’ve gone from Mad Men to just Mac Men.

While on the subject of personalities. There’s been chatter among some of the ad crowd who are wondering why some of the big voices in the ad world are so quiet. They are not even seen as often as they were at ad parties, awards and gatherings. There are murmurs of retirement and shifts in interests and priorities. Times are changing indeed.