At a board meeting held here today, Sebi approved a proposal to allow allotment to employees in excess of the extant limit of Rs 2 lakh per employee under employee reservation quota.
Advertisement
Experts point out that the move would help the two leading stock exchanges BSE and NSE in their proposed IPOs.
The regulator said here it also made a decision to permit Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InVIT) and Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) investment in two-level special objective vehicle (SPV) structure.
The Board also cleared a proposal to allow companies to allot more shares for their employees during public offers, by hiking the limit for the value of such allotments to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh now.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will allow Category 1 (multilateral agencies, sovereign wealth funds) and Category II (banks, insurers, pension funds) FPIs to access the bond markets directly, besides allowing Category III (family offices, trusts) to access the bond markets through the electronic bidding platform. Besides, Sebi has said it will grant permanent registration to intermediaries such as merchant bankers, credit rating agencies and so on, instead of the two-step process it now follows.
On September 12, dna reported Sebi’s wide-ranging moves to deepen the capital markets and check the rot.
“Regulation 17 (3) of SECC Regulation has been amended to increase the limit of shareholding of foreign institutional investors mentioned therein in Indian stock exchanges from 5% to 15%”, stated Sebi. Currently, three sponsors are required.
SEBI Chairman U K Sinha said three companies have already filed applications to launch their InVITs, while three more are expected soon.
According to him, increasing the percentage which an REIT can invest in under construction property from 10 per cent to 20 per cent will allow for more portfolios to be listed which hitherto could not be considered as their under construction portion was greater than 10 per cent.
SEBI also proposed to rationalise the requirements under related-party transactions, under which approval of 60% unit holders apart from related parties, is required for passing a related-party transaction.
Further, these stock brokers were required to be a qualified member of Recognized Stock Exchange in accordance with rule 8 of the securities contracts (regulations) rules, 1957, it said in a release.
As far as providing direct access to the domestic bond market is concerned, the regulator said that only category I and category II FPIs would be allowed to exercise this option.
“Reducing the mandatory sponsor holding in an InvIT from 25 per cent to 15 per cent will allow for more liquidity to sponsors”.
On Friday, Sebi unveiled several measures to check misuse of private equity agreements for grant of share price-based remuneration and proposed to ban the use of bulk SMSes, emails and emerging techniques like games, competitions and trading leagues for luring the gullible investors into fraudulent activities. Sebi also floated another consultation paper on amending its investment advisory rules.
Category I FPI includes government and government related investors such as central banks, governmental agencies, sovereign wealth funds and worldwide or multilateral organisations or agencies.
Advertisement
However, hedge funds, individuals and other high risk foreign investors will not get this facility.
