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Originally posted by Nightmare

I was talking to a friend in India and he suggested me to invest in Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL- Mukesh group) and Reliance Natural Resources Limited(RNRL-ADAG) to earn decent return on long term (3-5 Yr) horizon.

Both these are foing to put up green field projects. With INR appreciating , it may not be a bad idea. I have to invest $6,000.00 in RRSP. I made enquiry and while CRA allows self directed RRSP with large foreign content, I could not find any bank / Institution which can buy and hold these shares in my RRSP . I would appreciate CD suggestion and help in the matter.

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Your handle and the problems that you are encountering just happens to be the same. 'Nightmare'.
The RPL's IPO was offered at issue price of Rs. 60. That was an year ago. They issued 25% of their holdings to the public. Even if you had got it, say at Re.75-100. You would have made a substantial profit as it was trading last between 138.85 and 154.80 and ended up at 154.95- . WOW.
But here comes the problems associated with it. You cannot open an account in India now unless you have a PAN Number. Even then, you have to have an address and someone to look after your financial affairs and he also will need a power of attorney to do everything on that side associated with this trading.
A specific POA will do. I don't know if it has to be executed at the Indian Embassy or through a local Notary. It will be worth finding out, just out of curiosity.
Now comes the crunch. The NSDL and CDSL the two bodies that hold all the stock certificates in its physical form, have frozen 27.5 lakhs of demat accounts as they do not have a valid PAN Number associated with them. Another glitch is, those who applied for these IPO's did so with a lot of fictitious PAN numbers to get the physical possession of these and are now walking with their IPO's and the two BODIES do not know who they are. (i.e the NSDL & CDSL office berarers.)
That has raised a VERY BIG question and it is "Are these two bodies worth the salt" and if so what are they doing??. What about the stock certificates and the PAN numbers that they now have with matches to each of them. Would your portfolio have all of the stocks that you are supposed to be holding? If not when and how will you know about that.!! Can your broker verify the same and report back to you? If they don't match??.....Then what!!
After April 2008, even the Fixed Deposits will be frozen if they do not have a PAN Number, that is the rumour. What about NRI accounts?

RNRL-ADAG was issued at Re.25.65. and they are hoping that it will hit Re.100/ in a couple of years. But they had an initial set back and they were in the courts over their requirements of GAS and just got restarted and will progress a little slower for a start. It opened at 56.05 and hit 79.20 and closed at 76.85.
But the former one RPL is moving very well in the Indian Markets.

I did track the sales of the RPL through Singapore brokers and I am not in that sector to ask anyone with questions and get you a decent answer as to how they are accomplishing this act. You have to explore the same. May be they are listed there too.
There are a couple of Mutual Fund issuers across the border and in Canada who are offering to the martket Indian and Chinese Funds, they might be the ones to look up to and when you do find the same, please do get back to us and tell us what the outcome was.

Chindia News is another source to get answers from. Post one to his attention.

Since the year 2000, there is a movement in the ADRs and if you google the next line you will come up with some interesting answers. My computer here does not permit me to cut and paste the IP address of the article from the research. (funny!)
"An Empirical Study of Exchange-Traded ADRs from India".
Barclays in Canada who are doing the iShares and ETF's here for us is another source to tap. They are the International brokers in a lot of countries. If you have the time and the means to explore, please contact them and see how they are doing the trading in different parts of the world.
"Welcome to Barclays Global Investors."
Though the concept is sound and the horizon looks optimistic, I have also hit a dead end and I am also at the road block. There seems to be no way to get any foreign equities and vehicles into our RRSP or RRIF, other than through the Mutual Fund Avenue. But they just buy the stocks like any other common individual and make up their MF's. They do not get any special treatment at the IPO's, that is my understanding.

If you want to trade the Margin account in India, you can get a PAN Number and delegate some one to file the taxes on your behalf and progress with it. It may be the best way. See if they will provide you with three times the margin for some of the optionable stocks and get a head start. If they are LTCG's, then, you will get a tax break there, but the CRA will want their share anyway.
(Just a tought, pay the guy with POA a small fees too)

Hey... Some times you win and at other times, just keep on looking for opportunities. That is what makes life interesting.

Freddie.