UK-based 798 million ($1.5 billion) Collins Stewart Tullett (CST), a global financial services group listed on the LSE, is picking up a 50% stake in Mumbai-based Inga Advisors, a category-I merchant banker, through the foreign direct investment route.

The Forward Markets Commission has permitted two brokerages?Man Financial and Bonanza Commodities? to set up wholly owned subsidiaries abroad. Brokerages are queuing up for permission because it allows them to enter the Dubai commodities market, which is growing rapidly.

Led by state-run Oil & Natural Gas the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-stock Sensex ended a six-session rally by falling 76.41 points, or 0.6 %, to close at 13,429.48. On the rival NSE, the 50-stock S&P CNX Nifty fell 24.05 points, or 0.6 %, to close at 3852.80.

The real estate sector has attracted FDI worth $3bn in the first half of?06. This is the highest ever FDI inflow into the Indian real estate sector. Total FDI inflow into the country in FY06 was $7.5bn. However, India?s share in cross-border real estate investment is still small.

ICICI Venture, the biggest Indian buyout firm, plans to scale up the size of investments to earn bigger returns as company valuations surge and competition intensifies.

But venture investors have been overshadowed by ever-ballooning private equity firms and believe it's inevitable that some of the capital sloshing around the buyout world will find its way to them. The figure is roughly three times the $129.6 billion that private equity firms shelled out last year to buy 721 companies.

India's second largest lender ICICI Bank is poised to make significant investments on technology and manpower in the next five years to serve four major booming businesses -- corporate, SMEs, wealth management and rural and agriculture.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has approved 22 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals totalling Rs 896 crore, including major investments by Singapore-based Solitaire Capital and UK-based Alpha Airports. The company will accept foreign contributions through the venture capital fund route to make investments in real estate development projects.

Mumbai, October 4, 2006 - Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will invest Rs 47,500 crore in government debt in the fiscal year through March 31, chairman T S Vijayan said in Mumbai. The state-owned insurer has bought debt securities worth Rs 17,670 crore so far this fiscal year, he said in Mumbai on Tuesday.