The strict curbs, including a curfew from 8 pm till 7 am, and prohibitory orders during the daytime on weekdays came into force from Monday in the state.
The auditor of ABG Shipyard, which is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the Rs 23,000-crore default to banks, had settled an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by paying a small settlement fee in 2019. The regulator had initiated an investigation into the fund diversion from ABG Shipyard and had asked the auditor to explain why it failed to detect fund diversion in time. In his settlement application, auditor MN Ahmed, partner of Nisar & Kumar, a chartered accountant firm, said he ceased to be an Indian citizen and has retired from the profession.
Capital markets regulator Sebi has kept the proposed Rs 4,500-crore initial share-sale of edible oil major Adani Wilmar Ltd (AWL) in "abeyance". However, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) did not clarify further. The company had filed preliminary papers with Sebi on August 3, to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO).
Companies spent less money buying back their shares from the public last year than at any time since 2015. They announced buybacks of up to Rs 14,341 crore, show numbers from primary market tracker Prime Database. The total amount spent was Rs 13,597 crore. Both the amounts are lower than what was offered (Rs 39,564 crore) and spent (Rs 36,517 crore) in 2020.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani will appeal against the fine imposed by market regulator SEBI over alleged irregularities in a two-decade-old share issue in the company, the firm said on Thursday. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had issued debentures with convertible warrants in 1994 and allotted equity shares against the warrants in 2000. This was when Dhirubhai Ambani was heading the undivided company.
The value of unclaimed securities and other assets was nearly Rs 20,000 crore in March 2020.
'You may put hundreds of checks and balances but human beings are ingenious.'
This year is set to be the third consecutive year when India's share of IPOs has fallen relative to the rest of the world.
India's second largest IT firm Infosys on Tuesday said it will initiate an internal investigation into an insider trading matter after markets regulator Sebi barred two of its employees from the securities market in the case. Sebi has banned eight entities, including two employees of Infosys, for indulging in insider trading activities in the shares of the company. The entities have traded in the scrip of Infosys while in possession of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) pertaining to Infosys' financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, Sebi said in an interim order passed on Monday.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail on Thursday said it has acquired sole control of 25-year-old search and discovery firm Just Dial. The firm's subsidiary Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd had in July announced a deal to buy a controlling stake in Just Dial for Rs 3,497 crore. Further to that announcement, "RRVL has now taken sole control of Just Dial Ltd in accordance with the SEBI Takeover Regulations with effect from September 1, 2021."
Markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday imposed a penalty of Rs 5 crore on NDTV for its failure to disclose price-sensitive information about VCPL loan agreements but the company denied the charges and said it will appeal against the ruling. The loan agreements had clauses and conditions that substantially affected the functioning of the media company, Sebi said in its order. The regulator said its probe began after receipt of complaints in 2017 from Quantum Securities Pvt Ltd about an alleged violation of rules by non-disclosure of material information to the shareholders about loan agreements with Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Ltd (VCPL).
As a result, the deadline for filing June quarter results ends on August 15. However, only 1,538 companies out of the 4,000-odd listed firms managed to declare their results within the usual deadline.
Markets regulator Sebi is contemplating reforms in the IPO norms, especially on the book building, fixed price aspects and certain provisions pertaining to price band, its chief Ajay Tyagi said on Wednesday. Apart from initial public offer (IPO), the regulator is looking into further reforms on preferential issue front, Tyagi said at the FICCI's annual Capital Market Conference. He further said that the focus on review of equity fund raising norms will continue in the near future.
'This issue is related to national security because they were compromising the entire capital markets's core infrastructure by leaking confidential information.' 'What would have happened if the servers had come down?' 'Or some confidential information leaked to terrorists who could have knocked out our capital market?'
Ramkrishna gave 'frequent, arbitrary and disproportionate' increase in compensation to Subramanian when there was no evidence of any performance evaluation being done for him and nor was there any evidence to satisfy the rating of A+ given to him for giving such high increment.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Sunday won the race to acquire Swiss cement major Holcim's stake in Ambuja Cements and its subsidiary ACC for $10.5 bn (around Rs 81,361 crore), including the open offers. The Adani family, through an offshore special-purpose vehicle, announced that it had entered into definitive agreements for the acquisition of Holcim Ltd's entire stake in two of India's leading cement companies -- Ambuja Cements and ACC -- the Adani group said in a statement. The group outbid Ultratech and JSW group to enter the cement industry and also emerge as the country's second-largest cement manufacturer, with 70 million tonnes of capacity annually.
Sebi has amended rules pertaining to delisting of equity shares of a company following an open offer as part of efforts to make merger and acquisition transactions for listed companies more convenient. Under the new framework, promoters or acquirers need to disclose their intention to delist the firm through an initial public announcement, according to a notification. If the acquirer is desirous of delisting the target company, the acquirer must propose a higher price for delisting with suitable premium over open offer price. In case the open offer is for an indirect acquisition, the open offer price and indicative price will be notified by the acquirer at the time of making the detailed public statement and in the letter of offer.
Officials said Sebi first proposed to the FinMin to amend the relevant provisions in the Sebi Act to discontinue RBI's representation on its board, as it already has adequate presence of government nominees and in its over 25 years of existence the regulator has evolved as an "effective and one of the best in the world".
Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, his wife Rekha Jhunjhunwala, and eight other individuals on Wednesday settled a case related to insider trading in the shares of Aptech Ltd after paying more than Rs 37 crore. The amount included settlement charges, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains along with interest charges. The other eight individuals who settled the case are -- Rajeshkumar Jhunjhunwala, Shushila Devi Gupta, Sudha Gupta, Ushma Seth Sule, Utpal Sheth, Madhu Vadera Jayakumar, Chugh Yoginder Pal and Ramesh S Damani, according to two separate orders passed by Sebi. The orders come after the settlement applications by these perons with Sebi proposing to settle, "without admitting or denying the findings of fact and conclusions of law, through a settlement order".
In a significant move, markets watchdog Sebi on Tuesday decided to implement the requirement to separate the positions of chairperson and managing director at listed companies on a voluntary basis and not make it mandatory for now. The development also comes against the backdrop of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently saying the regulator should hear if Indian companies have a view on the matter even as she made it clear that she was not "giving a diktat". The top-500 listed entities were required to split the roles of chairperson and managing director/chief executive officer before the April 2022 deadline.
The ED has attached properties worth Rs 4,109 crore spread across various states in a money-laundering case linked to an alleged ponzi scheme, the agency said on Thursday. The case pertains to the Agri Gold Group of Companies. Three promoters of the group were arrested by the central agency on Tuesday.
India's first unicorn Zomato will make its stock market debut on Friday, marking a historic moment for the domestic capital market. As per initial schedule, Zomato's listing was to take place on July 27. However, investment banks managed to complete the share allotment and listing formalities ahead of the deadline. Under the Sebi framework, the timeline between IPO closing and listing has to be six working days. Zomato's IPO had closed on July 16.
'We would advise investors to hold on to multi-cap funds and not invest further until further clarity emerges.'
The primary issue market has hit an all-time high with 63 corporates raising Rs 1,18,704 crore through main-board initial public offerings (IPOs) so far in 2021, which is nearly 4.5 times more than the Rs 26,613 crore raised through 15 issues in 2020 and almost double of the previous best of Rs 68,827 crore in 2017, according to a report. Pranav Haldea, managing director of Prime Database Group, said the IPO frenzy was driven by new-age loss-making technology start-ups along with strong retail participation, and the resultant massive listing gains were the key highlights of the year. Another highlight was only 51 per cent or Rs 103,621 crore of the total Rs 202,009 crore was fresh capital raising and the remaining Rs 98,388 crore were offers for sale.
SAT observed that complaints were filed six years ago against 16 listed entities, including the registered intermediaries, but were disposed of by the regulator without settling the case.
When Biocon chairperson Kiran Majumdar-Shaw - well known for raising issues ranging from lack of civic services in Bengaluru to climate change - decided to take on the Indian stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), she forced the Indian corporate world and legal community to take notice. In an interview to Business Standard, Majumdar-Shaw called a Sebi order to impose a fine on insider trading charges against a Biocon employee and an external consultant an "Agatha Christie" fiction, which destroyed the reputation of "innocent people". "The order is pure harassment and has caused huge reputational damage to us and goes against the principles of good governance promised by this government," Mazumdar-Shaw said. "We will certainly appeal this," she added.
Capital markets regulator Sebi on Monday came out with a framework for operationalising the gold exchange, wherein the yellow metal will be traded in the form of electronic gold receipts (EGRs). The stock exchange desirous of trading in EGRs may apply to Sebi for approval of trading in the new segment, the regulator said in a circular. The bourses can launch contracts with different denomination for trading or conversion of EGR into gold. Under the new framework, the entire transaction has been divided into three tranches-- creation of EGR; trading of EGR on stock exchange and conversion of EGR into physical gold.
India's largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday said its up to Rs 16,000-crore share buyback programme will commence on December 18 and close on January 1, 2021. Last month, TCS shareholders had approved a proposal to buy back up to 5,33,33,333 equity shares of the company at Rs 3,000 per scrip for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,000 crore.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India's move directing asset management companies (AMCs) to invest more in their new fund offerings (NFOs) could force the industry to go slow on new product launches. At present, AMCs have to invest one per cent of the amount raised during a NFO or Rs 50 lakh, whichever is less.
The government has been in discussions to promote such international financial services centres within India as alternatives to places like Singapore.
In efforts to bolster corporate governance among listed companies, Sebi on Tuesday approved various amendments to rules governing the appointment, re-appointment and removal of independent directors, including the requirement to disclose resignation letters of such individuals. There will be a one-year cooling period for an independent director transitioning to a whole-time director in the same company/ holding/ subsidiary/ associate company or any company belonging to the promoter group. As part of the review of regulatory provisions related to independent directors, the Sebi board has cleared amendments to Sebi (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.
Markets regulator Sebi's proposal of treating all orders emanating from application programming interface (API) as algorithmic or algo order can restrict the growth of such trading in India, brokerage houses said on Monday. In market parlance, algo trading refers to any order that is generated using automated execution logic. The algo trading system automatically monitors the live stock prices and initiates an order when the given criteria are met.
Markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday imposed a penalty of Rs 5.25 crore on Cairn India for making a misleading announcement regarding the buyback of shares in 2014. In addition, the regulator levied a fine of Rs 15 lakh each on P Elango, who was the CEO and director of Cairn, Aman Mehta, who was the director on the company's board, and Neerja Sharma, who was director (risk assurance) and company secretary, Sebi said in an order. These three officials had signed the public advertisement regarding the buyback in January 2014 and facilitated the company in making the misleading announcement.
The date of implementation of the regulatory provision has been deferred to April 1, 2022, Sebi said in a notification without giving any reason for the move.
Market regulator is trying to build a large team of software experts for efficient monitoring and surveillance
Under the new guidelines, the top 10 active equity schemes in terms of assets would collectively require investments of around Rs 365 crore -- up from mandated Rs 50 lakh at present -- in their own schemes.
NSE's board was to approve on Friday the annual financial statement for the year ended March 31, 2019, but it decided to defer the matter till its legal team firmed up a view on Sebi's order, sources said.
While most brokers have upgraded their backend systems to trade, their front-end systems have not been upgraded. They are not compliant with Sebi's interop circular of November 2018 and no one seems to be either aware of this, nor has anything been done about it so far, explains Debashis Basu.
Reliance Group, recently, accused L&T Finance and Edelweiss Group entities of "illegal" and "motivated" actions in invoking the pledged shares of Anil Ambani group's three listed firms and selling them in open market causing a steep fall in share values.
The clarification by the National Securities Depository (NSDL) - which is tasked with monitoring foreign portfolio investor (FPI) investment in domestic stocks - that the accounts of top investors in Adani group stocks remain 'active' has helped prevent a $500-million selloff of shares. Analysts said a freeze of the FPI accounts, as reported by some media outlets, could have prompted global index providers to cut weighting of four Adani group companies from their global indices. Brian Freitas, an analyst at independent research provider Smartkarma, said if the FPI accounts were indeed frozen, FTSE and MSCI would have reduced weighting of Adani group companies at the next rebalance, since it would have meant that the large part of the free float was not tradeable.