Asia round-up: India’s capital moves

With the Bombay Sensex, India’s benchmark index, hitting new highs, it is perhaps not surprising that December saw India’s second largest ever equity deal and one of the biggest deals in Asia in 2005. Leading private sector bank ICICI Bank raised more than $1.5 billion from a local and American depositary share offering through Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

It is the prospect of more such big deals from India that presumably convinced Merrill Lynch to consolidate its Indian investment banking interests.