BITS Pilani Alumnus Financial Expert Dr S P Kothari of BlackRock BGI Talk on Global Economic Recovery

Online, December 5, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Dr S.P. Kothari has served as Global Head of Equity Research and has been responsible for research in active equity strategies supporting Barclays Global Investors' (BGI) which has recently been acquired by BlackRock a premier provider of global investment management, risk management and advisory services to institutional and retail clients around the world.

Prior to joining BGI, Dr Kothari was Deputy Dean and Gordon Y Billard Professor in Management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Previously, he was the Head of the Department of Economics, Finance, and Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

In 2005-06, he was Thomas Henry Carroll-Ford Visiting Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Dr. Kothari received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and is an editor of the Journal of Accounting & Economics (1997-present) a world-renowned academic research journal in accounting.

His research focuses on financial reporting and valuation, asset allocation, explaining the diversity in international accounting practices, use of employee stock options for compensating executives and accounting for stock options, evaluating investment performance, and corporate uses of derivatives for hedging and speculation.

He has also been on the Board of Directors of Vicarious Visions from 1998-2004, and a Senior Consultant with Charles River Associates International, a business-economics and litigation support consulting firm, for eight years. He has consulted with many large corporations, including leading US and international banks, Australian television broadcast corporations, US steel companies, E&Y, KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

On December 04, 2009, Dr SP Kothari delivered a lecture on the topic "Economic Recovery: Global Trends and Implications for India" at the Lecture Theatre Complex of Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani Rajasthan India.

Giving an overview of the Economic Crisis, he highlighted the recovery trends in USA, UK, Spain, Germany, China and India. He pointed out that in the stock market revenues are down but coupled with severe cost cutting, profitability has bounced back. He gave a critical analysis of Mexico, China and India in terms of Literacy, Population, Population Growth, GDP per capita, exports, imports and Net FDI to date.

Considering the limited potentials of agriculture in boosting per capita income, for raising the GDP per capita of India from existing $960 to $5000, he pointed out that out of the three options of Savings, Productivity Gains and Foreign Investment; he was of the opinion that FDI was the best choice.

Further since Infrastructure projects are often regulated monopolies, Dr Kothari prescribed that domestic investment be channeled into Infrastructure and FDI be targeted at Education, Retail, Airlines, Steel, Automobiles, Entertainment, Medical Services etc. Dr Kothari's lecture ended with an interesting set of questions put by the audience and the brilliant replies by him.

It is indeed a matter of pride that S P Kothari was a student of BITS Pilani during 1974 - 1979 and obtained his B.E. (Hons) Chemical Engineering.

For dreamer performer and achiever Dr SP Kothari who is presently the Chairman and Trustee of BITS Alumni Association - BITSAA International there are no dreams too large, no innovations unimaginable and no frontiers beyond reach.