Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Chapter 661: MSE Listing!



25th February 1659

In the blink of an eye, three weeks had already passed since the 9 companies went public.

In the span of three weeks, Mahabali Enterprises once again rose from 950 Varaha per share to 985 Varaha, a 3.68% increase, coming very close to the one billion Varaha valuation. Himalayan Group rose from 346 Varaha to 365, a 5.49% increase. Dynasty Corporation jumped from 17,240 Varaha to 17,500 Varaha, a 1.51% increase. Aryogam Furniture rose from 2.3 Varaha to 3.2, a 39.13% increase, mainly because the construction of new factories was made public, eliciting a very positive reaction from the public. Dashamuni Private Limited and Frontier Construction Firm both rose from 53 to 65 Varaha, representing a 22.64% increase for each. Akarsh Carriages rose from 284 to 300 Varaha, a 5.63% increase. Kombo Minerals rose from 50 to 73 Varaha, a 46% increase, mainly due to leaked news about the discovery of a new coal mine. Finally, Joshi Silks rose from 33 to 51 Varaha, a 54.55% increase, reflecting the public's reaction to Joshi expanding his silk farm with 20 new greenhouses.

The people of the empire continued to witness the miracle of the stock exchange as it created many more opportunities.

The city square of Mangaluru gained a newfound vitality as it became a tourist attraction and a place where people came to look at the market, which updated every two hours on the MSE building.

Traditional businesses and those hesitant to go public due to its untested nature started submitting applications to the Mangaluru Stock Exchange for listing.

Unexpectedly, one of the richest people in the empire, the owner of the largest pharmaceutical company, Bhupathi, soon submitted an application to list his Bhupathi Precision Machinery Company.

In fact, the stock exchange was not the main option for Bhupathi to absorb funds, as he had reached an agreement with a few investors to invest in the company for a stake of 20%. However, once the success of the stock market reached his ears, he decisively abandoned the deal and submitted the application to the MSE.

He was raising the money because he found it more and more difficult to compete with His Majesty's Venkatapathi Scientific and Pillar's Pillai Optics in precision manufacturing. So, he decisively chose to invest privately in a research institute focused on precision medical machinery, making him need urgent cash inflow without losing too much control.

In fact, he could have mobilized the funds from his pharmaceutical company, but he denied it himself. In his mind, Bhupathi Pharma was the core of his business empire, and Bhupathi Precision Machinery was only a supporting industry. He could never slow down the growth of his core industry to help the supporting industry. His heart was always filled with a sense of crisis as new drugs were being discovered every day and new Ayurvedic concoction formulas were being invented.

In order to obtain as many benefits as possible, he had been continuously buying out the manufacturing patents for new drugs and concoctions with huge amounts of money. What's more, the company was in constant flux, being expanded each passing day, with a small-scale factory added to the pharma sector every month.

In fact, Bhupathi even acquired the companies to which he had sold the patent and manufacturing rights of his drugs and concoctions, making him undisputedly the overlord in the medical field. However, other enterprises were slowly catching up. Hence, even if he lost everything in Bhupathi Precision Machinery, he still wouldn't divert resources away from the core business.

Ultimately, Bhupathi Precision Machinery (BPM) was approved by Mangaluru's stock exchange, and its application reached the desk of the Securities and Commerce Exchange Commission for final approval, with an evaluation of 15 million Varaha, giving out 20% of its equity in a total of 1 million shares at an initial public offering of three Varaha per share.

Bhupathi chose to keep the share price so low and the number of shares so high mainly for two reasons:

1. So that the stock would reach a higher market capitalization. He had observed for a few weeks and found out that companies with a larger number of shares did noticeably better than those with a smaller number of shares.

2. This was the most important reason, and it was that he did not want to have a unified voice against him. In his experience, he found out that the more people gathered, the less likely they were to agree on things, and vice versa—the fewer they were, the more they were willing to compromise for a greater goal, in which case it might be his power. Fortunately, with him offering 1 million shares, that was not bound to happen anytime soon.
Continue your saga on empire

The growth of this stock exchange was truly mind-opening to many European merchants, who saw how profitable each and every share was and couldn't help but grit their teeth in envy.

European-origin Bharatiyas like John Brown, Francis Molin, Ezekiel Oppenheimer, and Moshe Goldstein began to consider whether they wanted to list their companies in the stock market.

In fact, Francis Molin, using the resources he controlled, had already set up an investment bank with the largest number of brokers in the empire, but he still wouldn't dare to list his company until he saw how the performance of the first movers was. He wanted to know whether the people of the Bharatiya Empire were enthusiastic about stock trading, and from the looks of it, it was very successful.

Finally, at the end of the month, something amazing happened, which caused investors to go on a frantic buying spree. After accumulating enough reputation and experience, the Mangaluru Stock Exchange finally went public.

Through its functioning, the stock exchange produced a profit of more than 600 million Varaha for its listed companies, and with more high-quality companies coming to the door with applications, it was valued at 800 million Varaha for listing.

MSE is a jointly held property of Raya Royal Bank, Bharatiya Southern United Bank, and Shetty and Co Industrial Bank, making up 51% of the equity, while 9% is given to financial leaders of the empire, who will be changed every year. Finally, the remaining 40%, worth over 320 million, is divided into 200,000 shares and listed in the market for a premium price of 1600 Varaha.

The pricing was mainly decided by Vijay, as he did not want MSE to have a large market capitalization because it would be unstable. One negative rumour could make market investors sell their shares hastily, forming a chain reaction that could lead to the collapse of the stock exchange.

Premium prices are better for institutional investments, as they are much more informed and less likely to throw away stocks after hearing some baseless rumours.

By the end of the business day, the stock price of MSE rose by 5%, reaching 1680 per share, with a valuation of 840,000,000.

And it did not stop there. On the next business day, it successfully reached a valuation of 864,000,000 Varaha, with its stock price reaching 1728, after which it mostly stabilized, making the Raya Royal Bank, Shetty and Co Industrial Bank, and Bharatiya Southern United Bank a lot of money.

By the end of February, Mangaluru's stock exchange had assets worth 3 billion Varaha—a pretty ludicrous number considering that this was the GDP of the Bharatiya Empire last year. All this value is being held in Mangaluru's stock exchange through the assets of the companies listed.

The stock exchange made 3% of all transactions, meaning for the 600 million it helped the listed companies earn, MSE had netted 18 million Varaha. As for the brokers, they made an average of 1% to 2% per client, meaning revenue of anywhere from 6 million to 12 million Varaha spread across 5 investment institutes and 70 independent stockbrokers.

The price charged by the brokers was pretty fair, as this was the same price for most of history. However, the transactional charge made by the stock exchange of 3%, by modern standards, is extremely outrageous, especially considering that modern stock exchanges only take 0.003% of the cut for the processing fee, and in some stock exchanges, it is even free.

However, thinking about it, it is not too outrageous because, unlike in the future, where the processing is done by machines, the processing in the current era is completely done by humans. Considering all the talents employed by the stock exchange and the sheer scale of operations, it is understandable that the cut taken is a little higher.

Mapping the profits of 18 million per month, Mangaluru's stock exchange is bound to make over 200 million per annum, and that is under the condition that only around 600 million Varaha is produced in profits for the listed companies in one month. But seeing how high-quality companies are lining up to be listed, the future of MSE is unpredictable.

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In the meantime, somewhere on the outskirts of Hoysala,

an entourage of carriages passed through a tiny town. The carriages were filled with teenagers, all between the ages of 12 and 16, all having European features. That's right—these were the foreign exchange students who had just completed their intensive 2-month Bharati language basic training.

Nikolai wouldn't say he had mastered the language, but he was still proud that he was better than a lot of people in his group. He could identify nearly all the characters, read some words, and sometimes even form sentences. As for speaking, although he had a thick Russian accent, people could still vaguely understand him.

Right now, Nikolai and his colleagues were going to the school where they would be staying for a long time.

Nikolai, like his colleagues, looked through the window with anticipation, looking forward to his new life.

P.S. Sorry its a little ruff, I had to complete the edit within 20mins I'm tired today


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