Tremendous opportunity to support India's capital, advisory needs: Citi's investment bank chief Manolo Falco

Manolo Falco, Citigroup's Global Co-Head of Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory

Citigroup's Global Co-Head of Banking, Capital Markets, and Advisory Manolo Falco believes that there is tremendous opportunity to support India's capital and advisory needs.

In an interview with news agency ANI, Falco said that now, multinationals are starting to see India as a global manufacturing base, which will positively impact small- and mid-sized businesses.

Speaking about India now being the 5th largest economy in the world, surpassing the UK, the banking expert said that fiscal prudence and discipline, development of physical infrastructure, ease of doing business, and UPI, among many others, support the country's growth. "What I hear from our clients is that they want to grow more. What I hear from investors is they want to find meaningful opportunities to take part in," Falco said in the interview.

When questioned about the resilience and volatility of Indian stock markets amid the higher interest rate, and rising inflation globally, Falco added, "While I don't expect recovery too soon given, we may be closer to a recovery given the work by central banks."

He further said that India would be at the forefront of that as the economy is performing well and that the investment banking company expects markets to do well, on a relative basis. "The country has witnessed high-interest rates in the not-so-distant past and yet finds opportunities for continual growth. Recent green shoots and the revival of foreign inflows have resulted in a pickup in secondary market deal activity, albeit in narrow execution windows," he said in the emailed interview with ANI.

When asked about the capital demand within India in near future, Falco mentioned that given the continued tension in IPO markets and narrow windows in secondaries, listed equities could see $5-$6 billion in activity through the last three months of 2022. "We believe issuance activity should slowly recover as issuers and investors adjust to the new normal."

Moreover, in terms of debt capital, Falco said that the investment bank expects "strong demand from Indian issuers in the next 12-18 months, which is expected to result in sizeable debt issuance in 2023."

Notably, in a Bloomberg report too, Falco mentioned that India looked very steady and "it has a government that seems to know exactly what they have to do."

"The political situation in other parts of the world, and that includes Europe and probably the US and China is a bit different I would say," he had added.