India equity sales will be headed by Kunal Bajaj as a managing director, who will join from Credit Suisse, where he was director in institutional equity sales covering clients based in Asia.
The research capabilities in India will be lead by newly appointed Govind Chellappa, a former employee from Credit Sussie, as a managing director and head of India research and senior equity research analyst covering the autos and consumer industries.
Anand Agarwal has been appointed as a senior vice president and senior equity research analyst covering the real estate industry.
Ramnath Iyer as a managing director in equity sales focused on serving the Indian market.
The bank said Bajaj, Chellappa and Agarwal will be based in Mumbai, and Iyer in the firm’s Singapore office.
Recently, Jefferies received membership approvals from the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), as well as a Certificate of Registration from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a stock broker on the NSE and BSE.
To support its growth in India, Jefferies has also made additional key hires in the areas of operations, finance and compliance who will join the firm in the coming weeks.
Jefferies Asia CEO Mike Alexander said the establishment of a full-service equities business in India is the next step in the broader Asian equities expansion and comes on the heels of recent additions to its equity business in Tokyo and the firm’s ongoing growth in Hong Kong.
"The Indian market represents a significant opportunity for our global Equities business, and the establishment of this capability, which we expect to launch in the third quarter of this year, is a key part of our strategy to provide clients with high quality research and insight coupled with world-class execution and distribution globally."
The firm’s equities business now consists of more than 700 professionals globally, including over 200 outside the US Jefferies offers sales and trading services in a full range of equity products, including cash equities, electronic trading, equity derivatives, exchange traded funds, convertibles, prime brokerage, securities finance and more than 215 equity research professionals globally covering over 1,100 companies.
