London: Keen to expand and tap into India's growing economy, a British investment banking group, Nobel, has acquired a Mumbai and London-based leading research firm, Clear Capital, focused on the small and mid-cap equity market.

Noble believes there is an unmet demand among investors for high-quality research on mid-market companies listed on Indian stock markets, where current available research is "very poor".

The acquisition will become an integral part of Noble's growth strategy and it is intended that research coverage of Indian mid-capitalisation stocks will commence around the fourth quarter of this year, the company said.

"A focus solely based on UK equities was not an option . Investment professionals now needed to look internationally," John Llewellyn-Lloyd, head of investment banking at Noble, told mediapersons.

Based in Edinburgh and London, Noble will launch a "research and execution investor platform" specialising in small and medium-sized listed companies in India this year.

"There is a very high level of interest in the Indian market at the moment. There just aren't mid-cap firms in the UK which have made this sort of move in terms of covering stocks in different markets," Angus Macpherson, chief executive of Noble, said.

This is a much more ambitious development, a very different business model and creates a proper Anglo-Indian axis, he added.

Source : PTI