Speaking to The Financial Express, UTI chairman PS Subramanyam, the prime architect of the merger, said the first priority after the details are decided at the board meeting would be to begin negotiations with foreign players for the insurance venture. Mr Ramesh Gelli will be the chairman and managing director of the insurance venture which UTI Global will set up, and UTI itself is expected to hold about 10 per cent in the venture. Dr PJ Nayak, who is at present chairman and managing director of UTI Bank, will head the merged entity and Mr Gelli will be on the board as a director.

``We have lined up about four or five global majors with whom we will begin talks on an insurance tie-up soon'', Mr Subramanyam said. It may be recalled that UTI has been exploring the possibility of entering the insurance business for some time now and has also been in talks with AMP of Australia earlier. GTB, on its part, was in advanced stages of negotiations with the US-based life insurance company Nationwide.

Once through, UTI will join the select club of HDFC and ICICI in becoming a complete financial conglomerate, having a bank, an insurance venture, a broking house and infotech initiatives under their umbrellas.

Mr Subramanyam said the issue of getting a foreign partner for the bank itself was no longer necessary since the bank itself was adequately equipped to become a major player in the industry. Earlier, the market buzz had been talking of possible foreign alliances for both GTB and UTI Bank. The UTI chairman made it clear that the December 31 accounts for the two entities would be a consolidated one. He said the new entity would go for an issue of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) by December 31, 2001.

``I have set this as a target date and we will go about achieving it'', Mr Subramanyam said.The insurance venture, it may be mentioned, will have a ready retail customer base, with UTI's huge investor base which the venture can put to good use by data mining. large retail customer base.