Top sources in the company told The Financial Express that the new venture, Geojit Information Technology (GIT), will focus on developing back office services for financial service companies. The initial equity base of the wholly-owned subsidiary will be Rs three crore.

Sources also made it clear that the GIT will also explore the possibility of entering into a joint venture with established players in the IT venture. A clear picture will emerge during the Board meeting of the company slated for Monday.

Meanwhile, GSL is also working out a plan to raise its equity base by another Rs 20 crore to consolidate and expand its core business. At present, GSL is having an equity base of nearly Rs 11 crore comprising Rs 3-crore paid up capital, Rs 5.4 crore reserves and Rs 2.5 crore preferential shares. The exact mode of raising fresh capital of Rs 20 crore is yet to be worked out. All options ranging from venture capital to preferential shares are open, sources said. Geojit was prompted to enter the IT sector by the success achieved by its in-house software development programme. All the software needed by the company was developed by its in-house team, which had helped the company to have several first to its credit.

Recently, GSL had received a shot in arm, when the NSE selected the software developed by Geojit for the newly-introduced index futures. According to the understanding, NSE-IT will supply the software developed by Geojit to brokers engaged in the index future trade in the next three quarters. The payment for this will be on 60:40 ratio in favour of Geojit. On Internet trading by GSL, sources said this was doing very well. "We are having an average turnover of Rs 1 crore from Internet trading. Nearly 300 persons are doing Internet trading regularly through us. The Internet trading touched a record daily turnover of Rs 5-crore a few days ago."

In the first quarter of the current fiscal GSL has registered 165 per cent increase in turnover as against the same period in the previous year. During the same period, the profit after tax went up by 110 per cent. The total income of the company touched Rs 3.68 crore, while net profit stood at Rs 1.3 crore. In the financial year ended on March 31, 2000 the company reported a turnover of Rs 13 crore as against Rs 4.32 crore during the same period last year. Profit after tax has grown up to Rs 4.83 crore from Rs 1.44 crore in the same period in the previous year. The company hopes to have a total turnover of Rs 20 crore in the current fiscal with matching increase in profits.