India’s markets regulator will review its
delisting framework in an effort to ease capital market
processes, its chairman said at a summit on Friday.
* “A well-developed capital market must provide fair entry
and fair exit,” chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.
* The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has
rolled out a series of reforms over the last few years to make
the country’s capital markets more efficient and attractive to
investors, including faster trade settlements and streamlined
registration for foreign investors.
* In 2024, the regulator permitted the delisting of
companies via a fixed-price route, where shareholders are
offered a pre-set exit price. The mechanism serves as an
alternative to the reverse book-building process, which
determines the exit price through investor bids.
* The regulator also approved a voluntary delisting
framework last year for public sector companies where
controlling shareholders owned more than 90%.
* SEBI will also work with other regulators to simplify
know-your-customer rules for non-resident Indians, Pandey said.
* Concurrently, the watchdog is reviewing the rules of the
Innovators Growth Platform (IGP) for startups to help companies
better access the markets for long-term capital.
* The platform was introduced in 2016 as the Institutional
Trading Platform to help startups raise funds and list on stock
exchanges, but stringent eligibility and lock-in rules limited
interest.
* It was revived as the IGP in 2018, with further
relaxations in 2019 and 2021 to encourage listings.