Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in its investigation against Indiabulls Housing Finance has found the mortgage financier non-compliant with regards to unavailability of certain information on its website as well as its internal policy. Thereby, it has directed the company to take corrective measures and inform the stock exchanges in a months' time. Several public interest litigations (PILs) and FIRs were filed against Indiabulls Housing Finance back in 2019, alleging irregularities, siphoning of funds, and other violations committed by the promoters of the company.
After opening close to 1,500 branches in 2022-23, HDFC Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, will continue expanding its branch network at the same speed in the current financial year. The lender says branch expansion is crucial for deposit mobilisation. As of March 31, 2023, HDFC Bank had 7,821 branches, up from 6,342 a year ago.
Reports suggested that stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), is looking into the allegations of insider trading in the shares of Aptech, a computer training company in which Jhunjhunwala is a promoter. An email sent to Jhunjhunwala on the allegations did not immediately receive a response.
Both the exchanges advised their trading members to exercise additional due diligence while trading in illiquid stocks either on own account or on behalf of their clients.
Ramkrishna is in the news after a recent Sebi order said she was steered by a yogi, dwelling in the Himalayan ranges, in the appointment of Anand Subramanian as the exchange's group operating officer and advisor to the managing director (MD).
...why are the government is running away from a Joint Parliamentary Committee
Markets regulator Sebi has empanelled as many as 16 entities -- including BDO India, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India -- for conducting forensic audits of financial statements of listed companies as part of efforts to curb frauds. The other empanelled entities are -- Chaturvedi & Co, Chokshi & Chokshi LLP, Grant Thornton Bharat LLP, Haribhakti & Co. LLP, KPMG Assurance And Consulting Services LLP, Mukund M Chitale & Co and Protiviti India Member Pvt Ltd, according to a public notice. In addition, Rajvanshi & Associates, Ravi Rajan & Co LLP, SKVM & Company, Suresh K Jha & Co, T R Chadha & Co LLP and V Singhi & Associates have been selected to conduct the forensic audits, it added.
Earlier, the listing agreement was a bilateral one.
The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has named Ravneet Kaur, a Punjab cadre IAS officer of 1988 batch, as chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Kaur will hold the post for five years or until attaining the age of 65. She is the second woman to serve in an 'economic regulator' role after Madhabi Puri Buch, who was appointed chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India last year and the first woman to head the country's chief national competition regulator.
In its reply to the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said urgent action was warranted against the promoters of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) in the alleged fund diversion case to safeguard the management and protect investors and other stakeholders. It termed the applications made by Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra and ZEEL managing director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Punit Goenka as "completely false and misleading" in its response submitted to SAT on June 17. "We have a situation before us where the chairman emeritus and the MD and CEO of this large listed company are involved in a myriad of different schemes and transactions through which vast amounts of public money belonging to listed companies are diverted to private entities owned and controlled by these persons.
Markets regulator Sebi has reduced the minimum lock-in period for promoters' investment post an initial public offering (IPO) to 18 months from three years, under certain conditions. The move comes at a time when many companies are looking to list on the stock exchanges. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has streamlined disclosures requirements of group companies.
Market regulator Sebi suppressed important facts from the Supreme Court and "slept over" Directorate of Revenue Intelligence's letter on alleged stock manipulation by the Adani firms, one of the PIL petitioners in the Adani-Hindenburg row has alleged in the top court in an affidavit. The apex court is seized of four PILs on the Adani-Hindenburg controversy including those by lawyers M L Sharma and Vishal Tiwari, Congress leader Jaya Thakur and law student Anamika Jaiswal. On August 25, SEBI had informed the apex court it has completed the probe in all but two allegations against the Adani group, and is still awaiting information from five tax havens on the actual owners behind the foreign entities that have invested in the conglomerate.
Paytm had received the approval for brokerage services from market regulator Sebi in January this year.
Naresh Goyal-led Jet has also changed the shareholders agreement and amended the investment agreement and the articles of association, as suggested by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, headed by DEA Secretary Arvind Mayaram, official sources said.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) proposal to re-introduce "hard underwriting" is seen as step to boost India's moribund initial public offering (IPO) markets. The regulator has proposed that in case an IPO fails to garner full subscription, the investment banker or a third-party can buy the unsubscribed shares. This practice was common during fixed-price issues prior to 1999. However, under the new book building regime, underwriting is allowed only to the extent of shortfall due to technical rejection of bids - this is referred to as "soft underwriting" and is rarely invoked.
Since April there have been no new NFOs because of the delay in the implementation of the new norms around pooling of funds.
The mutual fund (MF) industry has seen a fair number of new entrants in the last 10 years but none of them have proved to be much of a challenge for the larger players. The list of top 20 fund houses, which manage over 90 per cent of the industry's total assets, continues to be dominated by players who have been in the business for more than a decade. Bajaj Finserv MF may change that, say experts.
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has asked why SEBI has not yet got to the bottom of ownership of the four Mauritius-based funds who are said to have parked 90 per cent of their $6.9 billion in Adani group stocks, saying does the market regulator need help of investigating agencies for this? The funds -- Elara India Opportunities Fund, Cresta Fund, Albula Investment Fund and APMS Investment Fund -- have been under cloud for last couple of years after allegations that they may be shell companies. They came into focus once again in January when a US short seller alleged that Adani Group used offshore shell companies to inflate stock price.
In a mixed bag for HDFC Bank ahead of the parent HDFC's merger with itself, the Reserve Bank of India has declined to make exceptions on certain aspects, and has offered some leeway on others. The country's largest private sector lender, which is aiming to conclude the merger with the home finance major by July, had written to the central bank seeking certain forbearances after announcing the $40-billion merger in April last year. In an exchange filing this evening, HDFC Bank said it received a response from RBI on Thursday and also said that there are a few pending issues.
Some unions have opposed EPFO investing in share markets.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India began its formal investigation into the complaint earlier this year.
Sebi has said investment banks should direct investors to original sources such as stock exchanges, where data is publicly available.
Sebi has also been asked to put in place a mechanism to monitor the beneficial owner of P-notes
Backed by their strong physical presence across the country, UTI Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund (MF) have managed to mobilise a higher proportion of their total assets under management (AUM) from towns and villages than their peers. Data compiled by Nuvama Institutional Equities shows that UTI MF and SBI MF are the only two major fund houses with over a fifth of their AUM coming from areas beyond the top 30 cities (referred to as B-30). UTI MF tops the chart with 23.8 per cent of its assets belonging to B-30 centres, followed by SBI MF with 21.2 per cent B-30 assets. The industry average stands at 17 per cent.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in publicly traded Adani group stocks through Mauritius-based 'opaque' investment funds by partners of promoter family, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) alleged on Thursday. The fresh allegations by an organisation funded by likes of George Soros and Rockefeller Brothers Fund come months after a US short seller wiped away close to $150 billion in value of Adani group stocks with allegations of accounting fraud, stock price manipulation and improper use of tax havens by the ports-to-energy conglomerate run by billionaire Gautam Adani. Adani group has denied all allegations. Citing review of files from multiple tax havens and internal Adani Group emails, OCCRP said its investigation found at least two cases where the "mysterious" investors bought and sold Adani stock through such offshore structures.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has received Rs 300 crore from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) following relief from the Supreme Court (SC), which is hearing an appeal by the market regulator in the colocation case. The court on March 20 asked Sebi to return Rs 300 crore to the NSE from the Rs 1,107 crore the exchange had deposited as part of the disgorgement in the case. The NSE had given an undertaking that it will return the entire amount to Sebi if the latter wins its appeal before the SC.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE), which is once again in the eye of a storm due to the co-location scandal, has said it has taken several transformational steps in the past few years on the regulatory, technological, and surveillance fronts to help improve stakeholder experience and to protect investors. Senior officials of the exchange briefed the media over the steps the exchange has taken on various fronts following changes at the helm with former managing director and chief executive officer Chitra Ramkrishna's ouster in December 2016. "Over the last few years, we have been looking to modernise and transform the entire value chain of technology.
Issues Rs 358 crore interim dividend, 1:10 bonus and 10:1 split
Instead of only focusing on the tenure for which the best interest rate is available, investors should also focus on their own investment horizon.
Stay orders keep law out of citizen access even years after CIC rulings on opening market institutions to scrutiny
Traditionally, financial institutions have operated risk functions in silos. However, the nature of unknown threats today requires industry participants to work together, says Vikram Limaye.
SoftBank-based e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal has deferred its Rs 1,250 crore IPO, joining the list of startups that have decided to shelve their initial public offering (IPO) plans this year. Snapdeal, which competes with Amazon and Flipkart, filed a request this week with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to withdraw its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) amid a sell-off in tech stocks worldwide. "Considering the prevailing market conditions, the company has decided to withdraw the DRHP. The company may reconsider an IPO in the future, depending on its need for growth capital and market conditions," a Snapdeal spokesperson said.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are likely to seek from the finance ministry a six-month extension of the date for complying with the amendments to the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), citing implementation challenges. Sources said FPIs, through their custodians, were planning to approach the ministry, highlighting key concerns and seeking more clarification. The ministry, through a notification on March 7, lowered the threshold for reporting ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) for non-profit organisations and politically exposed persons to 10 per cent from 25 per cent.
'Markets are not expensive; they are fairly priced.'
The agency recorded his statement under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said.
While some bankers said that responses to the Sebi are being delayed deliberately in some of the cases in view of the turbulent market conditions prevailing on the bourses, those associated with some of these deals said these are 'routine' clarifications and would be responded in the due course. According to the latest processing status as on March 14 of draft offer documents filed with Sebi, clarifications are currently awaited from lead managers in relation to 20 IPOs.
Six entities including four foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are under lens for suspicious trading in Adani group shares prior to the release of the damning Hindenburg report, the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee has said. There was a build up of short positions in the Adani scips prior to the January 24 release of the Hindenburg report, and substantial profits were booked thereafter as stocks crashed, the 178-page report said. A "short" position is generally the sale of a stock one does not own.
An expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court said it cannot conclude any regulatory failure around Adani Group's stock rallies, and that Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has 'drawn a blank' in its probe into alleged violations in money flows from offshore entities into the conglomerate.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
In a memorandum to Securities and Exchange Board of India on the proposed amendments to the Sebi (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992, Ficci, while welcoming the proposal that the regulations should not freeze legitimate trading by the specified persons, feels that the management of a company should be authorised to decide and create window freeze.