Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) from new geographies such as China, South Africa, South Korea and Australia are among the latest entrants in the Indian capital market in 2011.

However, in terms of numbers, North America and Europe-based FIIs still constitute the majority of the new registrations so far this year, a study of data available from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) reveal.

After last year’s entry by two giant Chinese funds in the Indian markets, namely ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management from Beijing and Chinese sovereign wealth fund BEST Investment Corporation (part of China Investment Corporation), another very big fund Bosera Asset Management with assets in access of $30 billion has registered with Sebi this year.

Raja Sujith, partner at Majmudar & Co, an international law firm, said, “There is a growing interest from Chinese funds in India and because others markets such as the USA and Europe are not doing well. In fact there is lot of Chinese interest outside the US and Europe now.”

Added Sandeep Parekh of FinSec Law Advisors, a corporate law firm, “FIIs registrations are really agnostic to which jurisdiction they come from as long as their regulator is a member of International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). For example, FIIs from Kuwait are not able to come to India because that country is not a member of IOSCO.”

Bosera Asset Management, located in China’s Shenzen city in Guangdong province has registered with Sebi this year, according to FII list maintained by Sebi.

Bosera is one of the largest asset management institutions in China with assets in access of $30 billion under management including 8.6 billion in pension assets. Bosera is an independent asset management institution serving over 11 million retail investors and 6 million pensioners.

ICBC or Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which registered last year, is one of the biggest Chinese banks with assets worth $1.6 trillion.

Best Invest Corporation, an entity of China Investment Corporation, responsible for managing part of China’s foreign exchange reser­ves, manages approximately $300 billion of assets, making it one of the largest sovereign wealth funds.

Other Chinese FII registered with Sebi is E Fund Management Company, one of the top asset management firms with close to $29 billion of asset under management as on September 2010.

China AMC Global Selective Equities Fund from Beijing and China International Fund Management from Shanghai are among other China-based FIIs registered with Sebi since 2008.

“There has been a reversal in foreign direct investments. Lot of people from around the world are investing in India as FIIs. Up to 2008 FDI was more than FII investments. That has changed now,” said Sujith.

But in terms of numbers its still North America (28) and Europe (26) based FII that top the list of maximum number of FIIs entering Indian capital market in 2011 so far compared with 19 from Asia-Pacific region.

raviranjan@mydigitalfc.com