The December board meeting of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) threw up some interesting proposals and some counter-intuitive ones. Most articles and opinion pieces about the 28 December meeting has been effusive about how Sebi has tightened the rules governing initial public offerings (IPO) in favour of the market and to bring to book rent seeking promoters, shareholders, including private equity (PE) funds, and bankers.
However, a closer look at some of the proposals reveals that these are not entirely in tune with market requirements or developments. At the outset, it would be useful to understand that Sebi’s paternalistic approach to regulating markets has always been to treat retail investors as a gullible set, who are out to be fleeced by market forces. Without going into the merits of such a rationale, the recent Sebi diktats are based on some learnings from the entry of the so-called new age technology companies.
Please click here to read the full article by Pracheta Bhattacharya and Arka Mookerjee, published in Mint.
Arka’s practice area covers primarily equity capital markets issuances which covers a wide range of products such as Initial Public Offerings, Rights Issues, Qualified Institutions Placements, Initial Public Offering of Infrastructure Trusts and foreign currency convertible bonds.