Media Release
Bengaluru, Jan 22: Kanara Entrepreneurs, the premier organisation of the Mangalorean Catholics for business, met on January 18 at Grand Magrath Hotel for their lead members meet. Of a total of 210 members with 78% entrepreneurs and 22% professionals, the lead members are 38 in number and constitute around 15% of the members. They mentor and provide leadership to the organisation.
The meeting was also attended by Altina Securities and Hem Ltd from Mumbai. Prof Sridharan from Christ University was also invited to discuss a joint proposal with KE under the terms of the MOU between the two. Altina Securities in their presentation extrapolated the wisdom of entrepreneurs taking the opportunity of listing on the SME exchange on the stock market. Their interesting example of how Reliance wiped out competition by astute use of capital from stock market was extremely illuminating. Even, at present the clever use of the capital market by Reliance Jio in the telecom market resulted in an earthquake. By deploying tens of thousands of crores mobilised from the capital market, the resulting shockwave of such a large mobilisation of funds wiped out many players from the Telecom market. From 17 Telecom players a year ago, we have today less than 5-6.
Parth Shah and Clifton D’Silva, the speakers urged the members to look seriously at listing at the SME stock exchange which is within the reach of any member who has just three years profit, and a net worth of 3 crores. They also gave the example of a Bengaluru based western fast food company which with a listing of just Rs 3 crore has reached a market capitalisation of Rs 15 crore in a year.
Prof Sridharan of Christ University then addressed the members on continuing the Christ/KE journey by inviting KE to host a joint Christ/KE gold medal for their best outgoing male and female students every year. His statistics were impressive. At present Christ only shortlists 10% of the 5,000 applications they receive from students, with a cut off percentage of 90%. So, the students are already of a very high caliber. By offering a gold medal to the best of the best, KE’s involvement was further deepened. Prof Sreedharan also had an in-depth discussion with Ivy Saldanha, director mentoring, Dr Joseph Rasquinha, director membership, and Roshan D’Silva, associate director of membership on an innovative Board initiative called Roundtable 360.
In the concept of Roundtable 360 benefits are enormous. Not only would there be knowledge dissemination, but KE members will connect with other business entities in foreign locations and use them as a gateway for business into that country and vice versa. For the students, a lot of them who are in family businesses could use the gateway for business as well, albeit in a more restrained manner.
Director of finance, Nigel Fernandes headed the committee that drafted the budget Wishlist. Notable members of the committee included Mark D’Souza, Valerian Fernandes, Clarence Pereira, and Arun Fernandes. The committee eschewed proposals that would be presented to the chief minister representing the wishes of KE members that need to be incorporated into the forthcoming Karnataka budget.
The vote of thanks was given by past president Anil Rego and the evening ended with fellowship and dinner.