Brickwork Ratings begins operations

BANGALORE, INDIA: As the Indian market is booming despite the global slowdown, one more rating agency started its operations in India.

Promoted by N Balasubramanian, former chairman of SIDBI and Vivek Kulkarni, former Karnataka IT secretary, Brickwork Ratings, which was launched in Bangalore on Wednesday, aims to help the Indian investor take right decision at the right time.

While this is the fifth rating agency in the country recognized by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), it is the first one to have the operations based in south India, and it would primarily focus on companies in the region.

With an initial corpus of about $ 1 million, the new venture is committed to improve the rating penetration in the country for the systematic development of the capital market, said the promoters.

“Brickwork Ratings aims to close the need gap for knowledge-based information, offering products such as rating of short and long term paper, company fixed deposits, tier-I and tier-II capital instruments of banks, structured products, IPO, etc,” said N Balasubramanian, chairman of the company.

He said the company will slowly expand its operations in other parts of the country as well.

“We have decided to extend knowledge-based services to the domestic market through a ratings methodology with a mission to help investors make investment decisions,” Vivek Kulkarni, managing director, Brickwork.

While describing the strategy of the new entity, Kulkarni said the methodology of the company has been formulated after studying the standard rating models developed by the likes of Edward Altman, W H Beaver, E B Deakin, David Lando and Darrell Duffie.

Based on the study the company has shortlisted a few critical parameters and developed an internal validation model.

Moreover the experience of the promoters will also add to the strength of Brickwork, he said.

For banks and financial institutions Brickwork has developed the CAMEL-TP model that looks at capital adequacy, asset quality, management quality, earning quality, liquidity, technology, and people.