
India markets regulator allows Jane Street to resume trading, sources say
The regulator sent an email to the firm on Friday in which it said that following the deposit of the money the restrictions imposed by its interim order are no longer applicable, said the sources who declined to be named because they are not authorised to speak to media.
In an interim order issued on July 3, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had barred the firm from buying and selling securities in the Indian market and froze $567 million of its funds. Jane Street could resume trading if an equivalent amount was deposited in an account that gives the regulator rights over the money until its investigation is complete, the order stated.
Email queries sent to Jane Street and SEBI were not answered immediately.
The country's stock exchanges, the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd and BSE Ltd., have been directed to closely monitor the activity of the U.S.-based quant trading firm, the sources said.
The two exchanges are yet to facilitate Jane Street's buying and selling of Indian securities, said one of the sources.
"While the firm has been allowed to resume trading in India, it has given an undertaking to SEBI that it will not trade in options. The firm also does not intend to trade in cash till it has explained its trades to SEBI," the second source said.
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BBC News
15 hours ago
- BBC News
Sunjay Kapur: Billionaire inheritance battle puts spotlight on India's messy family succession
An Indian tycoon's sudden death in June has triggered a fierce inheritance battle at an Indian automotive Kapur, 53, suffered a heart attack on 12 June while playing polo in Surrey in the UK. He was an heir to Sona Comstar, a $3.6bn (£2.7bn) business empire he inherited from his father. The company, among India's top auto component makers, has a global footprint with 10 plants spread across India, China, Mexico and the US.A polo enthusiast, Kapur moved in the elite social circles of Indian capital Delhi, and reportedly shared a friendship with Prince William. He was married three times - first to designer Nandita Mahtani, then to 90s Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor, before marrying Priya Sachdev, a former model and entrepreneur, in weeks after his death, the question of succession has made Kapur and his family the subject of media the centre of it is Kapur's mother Rani Kapur, former chairperson of Sona 24 July, Rani Kapur sent a letter to the board of Sona Comstar, raising questions about her son's death and appointments made by the company after the letter, which the BBC has seen, she alleged that Kapur's death was under "highly suspicious and unexplained circumstances".The coroner's office in Surrey told the BBC that after a postmortem, it had determined that Kapur died of natural causes. "The investigation has been closed," the office said. Rani Kapur also claims to have been coerced into signing key documents while under mental and emotional distress from her son's death."It is unfortunate that while the family and I are still in mourning, some people have chosen this as an opportune time to wrest control and usurp the family legacy," she also asked Sona Comstar's board to postpone its annual general meeting (AGM) - which was set for 25 July - to decide on a new director who would be a representative of the Kapur didn't specify who she meant by "some people", but Sona Comstar held the AGM the next day anyway and appointed Sunjay's wife Priya as a non-executive her letter, Rani Kapur claimed she was the sole beneficiary of her late husband's estate in a will left behind in 2015 which included a majority stake in Sona Group, including Sona company has strongly denied Rani Kapur's claims and said that she has had "no role, direct or indirect, in Sona Comstar since at least 2019".The board also said it had no compulsion to defer to her notice and that the AGM was conducted "in full compliance with the law". The company has issued a legal notice to Rani Kapur, asking her to stop spreading "false, malicious and damaging" BBC has contacted Sona Comstar, Rani Kapur and Priya Sachdev with shareholders, including banks, mutual funds and financial institutions, hold 71.98% of Sona Comstar, which is listed on Indian exchanges as Sona BLW. The remaining 28.02% is held by promoters via a company called Aureus Investments Pvt Ltd. According to the company's filings, Sunjay Kapur was the sole beneficiary of the RK Family Trust, which controls the promoters' stake in Sona Comstar via Aureus Investments."Looking at the company structure, at this point of time, Rani Kapur doesn't feature as a registered shareholder so won't have any voting rights. But there is the matter of the RK Family Trust and Aureus investments. We can't really know if Rani holds any direct interest there till the agreement is made public," says Tushar Kumar, a corporate litigator at India's Supreme Kapur family's feud isn't an isolated 90% of listed companies in India are family-controlled, yet only 63% have a formal succession plan in place, according to a PwC Ramachandran of the Indian School of Business says most Indian family businesses operate with "significant ambiguity about specifics"."One such [area] is who owns how much and who inherits and when," he say family involvement without meritocracy and absence of formal agreements complicate matters."On the demise of the patriarch (or even before), disputes arise, both on ownership and on management, and too much water would have flowed under the bridge for issues to be resolved amicably," said Ketan Dalal, who advises several Indian business families on ownership structures. India Inc. is strewn with bitter succession battles that repeatedly grab Ambani, Asia's richest man, was once embroiled in a very public power struggle with his younger brother over the sprawling Reliance empire after their father Dhirubhai Ambani died in 2002 without leaving a will. It was their mother, Kokilaben, who brokered peace years recently, family feuds have erupted at the Raymond Group, India's most famous textiles company, and among the Lodha brothers, whose company built the Trump tower in of this has often come at a great cost to Indian shareholders."Anyone who has kept infinite control in their hands has suffered. In the end it's the company that suffers, the stock prices go down and [so does] the perception of how the company will do in the future," says Sandeep Nerlekar, founder and managing director of legacy planning firm some families are now once bitten, twice Bajaj family, one of the country's biggest conglomerates, faced internal wrangling over succession until a court stepped in during the 2000s to resolve the patriarch mapped out a succession plan for the group, dividing responsibilities between his sons and cousin. As per the company's statement, the group now operates through consensus via a family year, one of India's oldest business houses, the locks-to-real estate Godrej Group, announced an uncharacteristically amicable separation of their multi-billion dollar business."Families need to work on succession planning with governance structures like a good board that has teeth. They should be given some control so that the business can grow long term. Also you need to allow the next generation to take the lead well in time and the patriarch should take the time to groom them so that family issues don't happen," says Mr likes of Mukesh Ambani appear to have taken that seriously, having begun grooming his three children well in Ramachandran says that succession is not something that can be decided "overnight"."Preparing both the family and the operating team over a planned transition period is crucial."Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.


Times
17 hours ago
- Times
I set up my FX firm in a Southend flat. Now we trade £1.6bn a year
Salvation for Southend-on-Sea. After years of trying to shed its tired, 'kiss-me-quick' image, the Essex coastal city has an unlikely new claim to fame: the birthplace of one of the UK's fastest-growing financial services firms. Oliver Carson was just 23 when he launched foreign exchange brokerage Universal Partners from his heavily mortgaged seafront flat eight years ago. Universal handled almost £1.6 billion of trades in 2024 and the outfit is now thought to be the UK's largest independent foreign exchange brokerage. The firm has been so successful that Carson, now 31, has installed a hefty oriental gong in the middle of the trading floor. Anyone landing a trade worth more than £5 million can celebrate with a thwack that reverberates throughout the office. The roster of clients signed up by Carson and his business partner, Dhaval Patel, 34, range from global corporate clients such as Amathus Drinks to Premier League footballers and other high net-worth individuals. Former world light-heavyweight champion boxer Joshua Buatsi is one of several famous names on Universal's books, as is ex-Arsenal and Southampton player Nathan Teller, now at Bayer Leverkusen. Universal helps clients time their transactions from one currency to another at the most advantageous time, thus saving them sizeable sums of money. Buatsi effectively boosted his pay from a recent bout by about £22,000 simply by delaying the transfer to a time when the dollar had lost some value against the pound. Carson and his 90 staff also ensure their clients have access to banking services so they can pay and receive bills in other countries, priding themselves on round-the-clock customer service. This Essex-born Apprentice reject who crashed out of college without any qualifications is not atypical of many dynamic traders who thrive in the City. But Universal's story is not merely another rags-to-riches tale — it also demonstrates the opportunities made possible when industries become over-wedded to technology, failing to understand that many clients still want personal service rather than simply access to a website or an easy-to-use app. Carson prides his brokerage's ability to forge deep relationships with its clients, trying to understand their financial goals and 'pain points'. Is a corporate customer looking to open in a new market and, if so, do they need a bank account or other financial infrastructure to keep costs low in that new arena? Is speed of transaction critical, or can a client wait for when an exchange rate is at its most advantageous? Have customers 'hedged' or protected themselves from possible currency fluctuations in the future? 'Most [foreign exchange] brokers at banks don't really offer that kind of service any more — they're execution only,' said Carson, who is also grabbing business from other non-bank foreign exchange services. 'Too often customers are directed to an online platform and have to convert transactions themselves. If you want to have a conversation with someone, you need to call between 8am and 5pm. 'That just doesn't work for footballers who often want to talk to you between 7pm and 8pm. Our clients can talk to us whenever required — at any time during the week.' Advising finance directors and top sportsmen all sounds a long way from where Carson's entrepreneurial endeavours began — selling conkers on string for 'a pound a pop' at Southend's Greenways Primary School. By 12 he was selling sweets in the playground of his secondary school in Billericay. A year or so later, he set about importing laser pens, polo shirts and other gizmos, making up to £30 a day from his schoolmates. That hunger to earn partly stemmed from a disrupted home life. Carson's parents separated when he was a toddler. He would move several times, attending four different schools. His relationship with his mother became strained. He has seen her just once over the past 14 years, he said. Hustling for money became something of a haven and before long, friends and family suggested he should apply for Young Apprentice, Lord Sugar's spin-off from his reality show for wannabe tycoons. 'I really wanted it and I got down to the last 30,' Carson recalls. 'It didn't work out, so I decided to go to college, largely because there were 2,000 potential customers for my trading, compared with the 500 there had been at school. I'm not sure that's really why you're meant to go to college. Anyway, I bought a moped to take me and the products back and forth from college. I was making £200, £300 a day from selling clothes, sunglasses and other stuff.' Despite failing all his college exams, he landed a place on a one-year course run by the enterprise academy set up by Peter Jones, the Dragons' Den panellist. It was, Carson said, a 'brilliant course', giving him a grounding in everything from financial planning and leadership to market research and pitching. 'I was 18 when I finished,' he remembers. 'That's when I sat down and worked out backwards what I wanted to do. I knew I liked financial markets, I liked psychology and business development. At the same time I had seen how money could make your life better and I wanted to go out there and get it. I put that all together and realised I wanted to be a stockbroker.' He took a job at a small foreign exchange brokerage close to London's Tower Bridge. Although his base pay of £500 a month barely covered his rail fare to and from Southend, he learned fast and within four years he was leading a team of ten traders. This was where he met Patel, his business partner. The pair would set up on their own after working together for four and a half years. 'We might have started sooner but I really wanted my own place and I needed a job to get a mortgage,' Carson said. 'I bought my flat in Southend for £400,000 with a 10 per cent deposit and resigned from my job two weeks later. You could say I've got a certain attitude to risk.' Patel and Carson's start-up would be based at that flat on Southend's Grand Parade for its first year. These days, Universal's home is an office block overlooking Canary Wharf's South Dock in east London. • HSBC leases new Canary Wharf office after return-to-office desk shortage The office today teems with twentysomething portfolio managers, many of whom have joined through Universal's academy. This training scheme provides people as young as 17 with a job starting at about £25,000 a year, as well as up to ten hours of training each week. Universal's ambition is hardly well hidden. Spelt out in capital letters on one of the walls is the mantra: 'We're not here to take part. We're here to take over.' There's been a fair bit to celebrate over the past year. Offering asset finance and other business lending is helping boost revenues. Universal is also moving into new markets, with a European office set to open by the end of this year. So, what about fundraising or a float to help keep the foot on the gas? There are no plans for now but it is clearly on Carson's mind. Carson and Patel still own 50 per cent of the business each. 'Over the past year we've been investing in the business, making big hires at a senior level that should be able to take us to the next level. To be fair, it still feels like we're just getting started.' Someone really does want to take over.


Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Modi vows to deepen India-Russia ties despite Trump tariffs
Narendra Modi has vowed to deepen India's ties with Russia, despite Donald Trump's tariff threats over buying Russian oil. India's prime minister described Vladimir Putin as a friend following a 'good and detailed' phone call that came days after the US president doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent because of the Russian oil trade. 'Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine,' Modi said in a post on X on Friday. 'We also reviewed the progress in our bilateral agenda, and reaffirmed our commitment to further deepen the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.' Peace talks in Alaska Referring to India and Russia's annual bilateral summit, he added: 'I look forward to hosting President Putin in India later this year.' In a joint statement issued later, the two leaders reaffirmed the commitment to their countries' partnership. Putin is scheduled to meet Mr Trump in Alaska on August 15 for talks over the war in Ukraine. The tariffs placed on India by the US are aimed at pressuring India over its imports of Russian oil, the money from which is helping Putin fund his war. Bur Mr Modi's comments suggest that despite the pressure from Mr Trump, India has no plans to pull away from Russia. 'The only big power that India is comfortable with is Russia,' Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst for India at International Crisis Group, told The Telegraph. ' Russia has been an all-weather ally of India. It's been a long and reliable friend. It is like a legacy relationship that goes back six decades and India cannot suddenly go out of that and cannot jump into the US and the West bandwagon. 'Trump is using that to put pressure on India by citing India's stance on the Russia -Ukraine war.' Last week, Mr Trump described India and Russia's economies as 'dead', and accused India of not caring about those killed in the conflict in Ukraine. And he has indicated that he may even pause trade talks with India until the oil issue is 'resolved'. Rejecting the idea of speeding up negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement, he said: 'No, not until we get it resolved,' apparently referring to his demand that India cease importing Russian oil until the war in Ukraine is over. Russia has expressed solidarity with India amid pressure from Mr Trump, who has imposed 50 per cent tariffs that are set to come into force on Aug 27. 'Sovereign countries have the right to choose their own trading partners,' Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said, criticising calls to 'force countries to sever trading relations' with Russia as 'illegitimate'. India has defended its Russian oil purchases, calling it a move necessitated by 'global market conditions'. Rajnath Singh, the Indian defence minister, has deferred an upcoming US visit for several months as the tariff dispute casts a shadow. It was originally scheduled for the last week of August. On July 1, Pete Hegseth , the US Defence Secretary, had a phone call with Mr. Singh – their third this year – during which he invited him to the US for an in-person meeting to advance bilateral defence cooperation.