IIFL Finance Limited (formerly IIFL Holdings Limited)

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

IIFL and India Infoline Finance Limited, is an Indian diversified financial services company headquartered in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. The organisation was founded by

Nirmal Jain Nirmal Jain (born 1967) is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the founder and chairman of India Infoline (IIFL) Group, a financial conglomerates. IIFL and its group companies are backed by Canadian investor Prem Watsa, private equity firm ...

. IIFL and its group companies are backed by Canadian investor

Prem Watsa Prem Watsa (born 5 August 1950) is an Indian-Canadian billionaire businessman who is the founder, chairman, and chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings, based in Toronto. He has been called the "Canadian Warren Buffett." He was awarded th ...

private equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...

General Atlantic General Atlantic (also known as "GA") is an American growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for global growth companies, headquartered in New York, United States. The firm was founded in 1980 as the captive investment team for ...

and

CDC Group British International Investment, (formerly CDC Group plc, Commonwealth Development Corporation, and Colonial Development Corporation) is the development finance institution of the UK government. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office ...

, the UK Government's private equity arm. IIFL is ranked among the top seven financial conglomerates in India and as the top independent financial services firm in India in terms of market capitalisation.

is the chairman of the group, while R Venkataraman is the group managing director and co-promoter.

History and overview - IIFL Group

IIFL was founded on 18 October 1995, by

, a 1986 graduate from

University of Mumbai The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...

and an alumnus of

Indian Institute of Management The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are central government-owned-public business schools for management offering undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and executive programmes along with some additional courses in the field of busin ...

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

. Jain is among the few successful entrepreneurs post the economic liberalisation era in India ushered by

PV Narasimha Rao Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known for introducing various liberal reforms to Indi ...

. Jain was previously employed with

Hindustan Unilever Limited Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is a consumer goods company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a subsidiary of Unilever, a British company. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products, water pur ...

. The company was founded as Probity Research and Services Private Limited which provided research on the Indian economy, businesses and corporates. The name was later changed to India Infoline Limited. A few years into the business, the organisation found itself with clients which included research organisations, banks and corporates. They then began launching their research products to become more noticeable in the market. In the meanwhile, the dotcom revolution was beginning to take place in India. The website was created in 1999. Taking the business one step ahead this group of consultants opened a trading portal – 5paisa –in 2000 thus moved into the business of being a full service broking agency. During this time they widened their distribution network. In 2001, the Indian dotcom industry saw a downfall. During this time, sustaining became tough. The organisation then decided to tie-up with leading Life Insurance company ICICI Prudential, thus putting to use its distribution network and becoming India's first corporate agent for insurance. Today, IIFL Holdings Limited (Bloomberg Code: IIFL IN, NSE: IIFL, BSE: 532636) is India's leading integrated financial services group with diverse operating businesses, mainly Non Banking and Housing Finance, Wealth and

Asset Management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

, Broking, Financial Product Distribution, Investment Banking, Institutional Equities, Realty and Property Advisory Services. IIFL Holdings has a consolidated net-worth of over Rs 45 billion; global presence in Canada,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, UK,

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, Switzerland, Mauritius, and UAE; An employee workforce of over 10,500, a strong network of over 2,250 service locations spread across India, over Rs 233 billion loan assets under management; over Rs 1,250 bn wealth assets under advice, management and distribution; over 500 stocks under research and more than 300 of the world's top institutional investors relying on IIFL's research.

Involvement in NSEL case

IIFL along with few other top brokers have been accused of various irregularities on NSEL. Agencies including EOW-Mumbai and SFIO have found the top 5 brokers including IIFL guilty of misselling NSEL contracts, KYC manipulation, client code modification, benami transactions & infusion of black money through their NBFCs on the Exchange platform. The EOW had arrested senior employees of three brokerages namely IIFL, Motilal Oswal & Anand Rathi in March, 2015. This was followed by the market regulator, SEBI issuing multiple show-cause notices to the brokers in 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019 respectively. The EOW-Mumbai in its supplementary charge sheet has also accused the three brokerages IIFL, Motilal Oswal & Anand Rathi of cheating clients. In February 2019, SEBI declared IIFL and Motilal Oswal ‘not fit and proper’ as commodity derivative brokers based on the recommendations of SFIO & EOW's report.

Funding

India Infoline Finance is a subsidiary of IIFL Holdings Ltd which in 2020, raised ₹100 Crore by issuing non-convertible debentures.

Awards and recognition

IIFL has been awarded by Euromoney for the Best Private Banking Services Overall in India for 2017. It has also been adjudged as the Best Private Bank in India at the Global Finance Best Private Bank Awards in 2017. * Euromoney awards IIFL for Best Private Banking Services - India, 2017. * ET Now - Dealing Room Heroes, 2017.

References

External links

*
India Infoline Official website
— Indiainfoline.com {{Authority control Financial services companies of India Financial services companies based in Mumbai Indian companies established in 1995 Brokerage firms 1995 establishments in Maharashtra Financial services companies established in 1995 Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange