In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had issued a temporary ban on the practice of “naked” short sales. By way of a recent press release, SEC has now made the ban permanent. The Press Release defines a “naked” short sale as one where “the investor sells shares “short” without first having borrowed them”. While the Indian securities...
SEBI Notification Regarding Anchor Investors, etc.
RNI-1300 A couple of weeks ago, we had discussed some primary market reforms that were announced by SEBI. Most of those reforms have now been notified by SEBI by way of amendments to the SEBI (Disclosure and Investor Protection) Guidelines, 2000. The notification contains a fair amount of detail regarding anchor investors. Although such investors are conferred discretionary allocation rights...
SEBI’s Recent Primary Market Reforms
SEBI last week announced a slew of reforms to the primary capital markets. The key reforms are as follows: Anchor InvestorsThe concept of “anchor investors” has been introduced in public issues whereby 30% of the institutional (QIB) portion will be allocated to anchor investors on a discretionary basis. This is to ensure minimum commitments from key investors that not only boosts the prospects of...
Prospects for Recovery of Capital Markets
Now that green shoots are visible in the Indian markets with some encouragement from the formation of the new Government, there is an expectation that capital markets are poised for recovery. There seems to be a steady flow of foreign capital into the Indian markets, and Indian companies too seem to be raising capital, albeit from institutional sources. If the trend were to continue, there could...
Listing Unsecured Debt
In his recent column in the Business Standard, Somasekhar Sundaresan discusses the existence of certain ambiguities in interpreting the SEBI (Issue and Listing of Debt Securities) Regulations, 2008 and the special listing agreement for debt securities, which make it unclear whether listed corporate bonds should necessarily be secured to the full extent of the debt amount or whether those...
Shareholder Activism and Class Action Lawsuits
Recent developments in the Indian corporate sphere – Satyam being the prime example – have raised several calls for instilling the culture of shareholder activism in India. One key form of such activism that keeps companies under check is the availability of class action lawsuits for securities law violations by companies, their promoters or managers. The threat of a lawsuit, the loss of...
Pyramid Saimira and the Powers of the SEBI
A few weeks ago, the SEBI passed an order (WTM/KMA/60/04/2009) in the Pyramid Saimira case, which raises questions pertaining to insider trading. The order resulted from SEBI’s investigation into the affairs of Pyramid Saimira, highlighted in this post. The particular sequence of events is discussed in several reports, linked here and here. In its order (though only an interim one), the SEBI...
Amendments to Equity Listing Agreement
On April 24, 2009, SEBI issued a circular amending certain provisions of the Equity Listing Agreement that all listed companies are required to comply with. The key amendments are listed below: – A uniform procedure has been created for dealing with shares that lay unclaimed after public issues; – The notice period for all corporate actions such as dividend, bonus, etc. has been...
RTI and the Corporate Sector
The Right to Information Act, 2005 has been successful in inducing transparency in the decision-making process of the government. However, it has been reported, quoting the Chief Information Commissioner, that the there is a need for the concept of right to information (RTI) under the Act to be “directly applicable to corporate houses”. The report further states: “[The Chief Information...
SEBI’s Proposal to Revitalise Rights Issues
Rights issues offer an important avenue for companies to raise capital, especially when bank financing may be difficult owing to a credit crunch as we are currently witnessing. However, in the Indian context, the procedure for carrying out a rights issue has been as onerous as it is for a full-blown public issue. This is because the disclosure requirements and the timing involved in a rights...
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