KUALA LUMPUR: Major regional and foreign investment banks have shown greater interest to increase stakes in local stand-alone investment banks as part of their regional expansion plans following the liberalisation of the financial sector.

ECM Libra Financial Group Bhd executive chairman and chief executive officer Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan said most of these banks hoped to increase their stakes to at least 51% from 49% previously to gain greater control of these local banks.

“It will be a huge boost to local stand-alone investment banks because they can now leverage on the expertise of these foreign partners to secure larger deals,” he said after the company AGM yesterday.

Kalimullah, however, said ECM Libra was in no rush to sell stakes in the bank to foreign investment banks as the current economic situation was bottoming out.

Year-to-date, Kalimullah said ECM Libra had seen a three-fold increase in its brokerage division income as deals began to pick up.

“We hope to double our current remisier base of 200 by end of next year to build up expertise in areas such as structured finance, treasury and fixed income investment,” he said.

For the financial year ended Jan 31 (FY09), the group made a pre-tax loss of RM20.2mil against a pre-tax profit of RM80.7mil the previous year.

Revenue for FY09 fell to RM74.2mil from RM157.6mil previously. The Government had last month increased the foreign equity limit for investment banks to 70% from 49% previously.