Indias Titan Index, competition for the Sensex

The Dow Jones company has launched the Titan 30 Index to compete with Indias famed sensex index. Modeled after the US Dow Jones average, the Titan Index will track 30 of Indias largest publicly traded companies. Indian Rupee. Rupee vs dollar

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An index of 30 leading Indian company stocks, Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index, was launched today by Mr Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of media conglomerate News Corporation.

“The Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index includes 30 largest and most liquid stocks traded in India. The selection to the index will be based on rankings by float-adjusted market capitalization and 12 month average daily trading volume,” the media company said.

The index will track share prices of leading players across various business segments incorporated on the index and will be a basis for investment. Calculated in US dollar and Indian rupee, it will be reviewed every March.

The index has been created by financial information company Dow Jones Indexes, a business unit of Dow Jones & Company, a News Corporation company.

Launching the index, Mr Murdoch said the blue-chip index for India will be licensed to financial institutions as the basis of investment products, such as exchange-traded funds.

“The growing importance of India to the world and to Dow Jones and News Corporation is obvious to all. What the world needs is a trusted means of measuring this country’s development and an index that can be used by investors around the world to track the progress of Indian companies and the Indian economy,” said Mr Murdoch.

“We will see huge capital flows both from and to India in coming years and that is an opportunity for us as a financial information company and for international investors who want to take advantage of this profound trend.”

Cap on weightage

Unlike other benchmark indices such as the Sensex, Nifty, Morgan Stanley India Index, the new index has 10 per cent weightage cap for individual securities.

This is illustrated by Reliance Industries that figures on the Dow Jones India Titans 30 with highest weightage of 10.80 per cent, as compared to Reliance’s weightage on Sensex of 15.96 per cent, on Monday. On NSE’s S&P CNX Nifty, Reliance enjoyed weightage of 12.51 per cent.

In the Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index, the financial sector has the highest weightage of 23.16 per cent, followed by basic materials 19.81 per cent, oil and gas 13.99 per cent — as on July 31, when it was made public for the first time.

Top 10 companies represented on this index are Reliance Industries, Infosys Technologies, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank, ITC, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, DLF and Reliance Communication.

Morgan Stanley Capital International India index is another widely referred index of top Indian companies from the leading US based financial firm Morgan Stanley.

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Two of the world's most powerful state-run oil titans are locked in a tug of war for control of a UK exploration group based in Leeds and operating in Russia.

Shares in Imperial Energy rose steeply, valuing it at over £1.1bn, after it announced a bid approach which could lead to a cash offer. Experts say the mystery bidder is almost certainly the state controlled China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec).

Discussions are already underway with the Oil and National Gas Corporation of India (ONGC) which, like Sinopec, is desperate to acquire energy assets around the world to meet growing demand at home caused by the rapid pace of industrialisation.

The International Energy Agency estimates that Chinese demand will grow by 6 per cent this year and Indian demand by 5 per cent.

More players could still enter the battle. There were reports that the Korea National Oil Corporation is weighing up the prospects of a bid. The firm tried to buy Burren Energy last year but was outbid by Italy's Eni.

Imperial, formed in 2004 by executive chairman Pete Levine, 52, remains a tiddler in the global energy stakes. The group has a portfolio of oil and gas assets in western Siberia and Kazakhstan, but is currently producing only 10,000 barrels a day, although it plans to accelerate output to 80,000 by the end of 2011. However, recoverable reserves are estimated at 900 millionbarrels.

Imperial, a constituent company of the FTSE 250, has been watched closely by the major players. Last November Gazprom, the Russian gas export giant, made an approach to buy a quarter of the company, but talks floundered.

Imperial shares rose 86p to 1,160p yesterday, having been considerably higher earlier this year before rumours of Russian state intervention on the grounds of potential environmental damage unnerved investors.

In January, when the price peaked at 1,675p, Mr Levine raised £26m from the sale of 1.5 million shares, cutting his stake to 3.1 million or 6.1 per cent. Other key holders include Schroders with 10 per cent and Fidelity with 4.8 per cent.

Tim Heeley at the broker Daniel Stewart said any successful offer for Imperial would have to be pitched around the £15 mark while Cazenove considered it would need to be between £13 and £14.

However, the broker raised the intriguing possibility of Sinopec and ONGC getting together to launch a consortium bid "to avoid competing against each other".

Neither is it likely that the Russian government will stand in the way of intervention by either the Chinese or Indian groups taking over valuedassets within the country. The Russians have so far raised no objection to Indian investment in upstream assets, while Sinopec has already take two significant stakes in ventures within the country.