Rajnikant Patel appointed director of ICEX

Rajnikant Patel is back in the limelight. He has been appointed whole-time director at commodity futures exchange ICEX, in which his parent company, Reliance Capital, has assumed the role of anchor investor after acquiring the 26 per cent stake of original promoter India Bulls Financial Services. Patel spent the early years of his career with Reserve Bank of India. He joined Bombay Stock Exchange as executive director and was asked to demutualise and corporatise Asia’s oldest bourse. To his credit, BSE attracted good investors, including Frankfurt’s Deutsche Börse and Singapore’s SGX, who hold 5 per cent each. BSE, which was known as a brokers’ cartel, has cut them down to size. Brokers together hold less than 49 per cent now.