ICBF

TAPMI – Manipal, organized a 3-day International Conference on Banking and Finance held at Hotel Atria, Bangalore from 9th to 11th August 2012. It was organized by the Centre for Research in Banking and Finance (CRBF) headed by Prof. S. R. Vishwanath. The centre is funded by AICTE, country’s regulator for management education. The Chair and the co-Chair of the conference were Prof S.R Vishwanath and Prof Sulagna Mukherjee, faculty members in the area of Economics and Finance. The Conference was attended by Student representatives from Finance Forum, Faculty Members of Finance and Economics Area, Scholars and Academicians from various Indian and Foreign Universities as also Management Institutes, Officials from Reserve Bank of India and top functionaries from the industry.

The programme committee of the Conference included eminent academicians like Prof. P. Raghavendra Rau from Cambridge, Prof. Shantaram P. Hegde of University of Connecticut, Prof. Anand Srinivasan, of National University of Singapore, Prof. Latha Shanker of Concordia University, Canada and Prof. Vijaya Marisetty (RMIT). Several papers from different corners of the world were received by the Committee. After a rigorous review process, 19 papers were finally selected for the Conference. Out of these, 13 of them were from scholars who are working in reputed Universities in US, Canada, Australia, France and Singapore. The topics for presentation in the Conference included Corporate Governance, Banking, Asset Pricing, IPOs, Futures Markets, and Venture Capital, to name a few. The keynote address for the Conference was delivered on day one, by Prof. Jay Ritter. He is Cordell Eminent Scholar, Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, USA. He spoke in general about the relation between stock market investment and the economic growth of the country. In this context, he tried to bring in a cross country perspective to the discussion. A Paper on Linear Beta Pricing with Inefficient Benchmarks was presented by Prof. David Feldman University of New South wales, Australia, co-authored by Prof. George Dicogiannis, Greece.

In the next two days, eminent scholars presented their work before the audience and there were discussions and suggestions given to each one of them by the Discussants and the participants. Prof. Vijaya Marisetty from RMIT, did present four papers (the highest) which he co-authored with scholars from different universities. Two faculty members from TAPMI namely Prof S R Vishwanath and Prof. Kushankur Dey also presented their work in the conference. Their papers were titled as “The value of unaffiliated analyst recommendations before the IPO: Evidence from Indian IPOs” and “Investigation of informational efficiency of India’s coffee futures” respectively. Two research scholars working in the finance area from IIM Bangalore and IIT Kharagpur also presented their papers. Their papers were quiet well received and they were given suggestions to improve their research work.

The three day conference concluded on 11th August 2012 with the valedictory and awards ceremony. There were three categories of awards, given to the best paper in regular category, to the doctoral scholar and the best reviewer award. There were two recipients in the first category. Prof. Raghavendra Rau from Cambridge University won the award for his paper titled “Initial Public Debt Offerings” and Prof Vijaya Marisetty won for “ Private Placements to Owner Managers: Theory and Evidence”. The best paper in the doctoral student category went to Mr. Narahari Hansoge from IIM Bangalore for the paper titled “Economic transition and the value of Business group affiliation: Evidence from Indian market”. The best reviewer award went to Prof. Shantaram P. Hegde from University of Connecticut. The programme committee members were also presented with mementos as a token of appreciation. All the awards and mementos were given away by Dr R C Natarajan, Director of TAPMI.