Reliance Money Enters Investment Banking ( Is this the next lehman brothers ?)

Even as global asset managers face a backlash in the wake of the credit crisis,this has not forced a few to retreat from their plans to foray into investment banking. Reliance Money, the retail brokerage and distribution arm of Anil Ambani's financial services firm Reliance Capital, is now expanding into merchant banking. The firm today announced that it has received Category I merchant banking license from the market regulator SEBI.   The license allows Reliance Money to offer a range of investment banking services such as issue management, underwriting, private equity advisory & syndication besides corporate finance services in India. The company is infact eyeing atleast 50 fund-raising deals by the end of the current fiscal.   Reliance Money director and CEO, Sudip Bandyopadhyay has indicated that one of the key target areas will be small and mid sized firms: "While the main focus of the industry has been on large caps, we see a huge opportunity in serving the small and mid-sized segment, currently being under-serviced." More : Source