Mumbai, Nov 22: Mecklai Financial & Commercial Services on Saturday tied up with the UK-based Billiton Metals for a correspondent agreement.

As per the agreement, Mecklai Financial will act as an introducing broker for Billiton Metals providing Indian companies access to the London Metal Exchange (LME) to hedge price risks.

The tie-up between the two comes exactly a day after the "committee on hedging through international commodity exchanges" submitted its report to the Reserve Bank of India governor. The committee has recommended that the freedom to hedge be given to Indian end-users in two distinct phases.

Mecklai Financial managing director Jamal Mecklai was one of the members of the committee. Billiton and Mecklai Financial have been parties to a research distribution agreement since April 1997. Billiton Metals is a long established ring dealing member of the London Metal Exchange and is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Billiton Plc, a diversified mining company.

Billiton is an active market dealer in all LME contracts offering custom-made hedging strategies, using combinations of futures, options, swaps and average rate contracts suited to meet customer needs. Mecklai Financial, with the deregulation of the economy, extended its operations to include markets such as rupee fixed income, non-ferrous metals, agro-commodities and bullion.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.