In today's Board meeting, the market regulator is likely to address adjustments to voluntary delisting guidelines and regulations on fractional real-estate ownership.
Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), has stated that the delisting requirements would be reviewed at the regulator's next Board meeting. She mentioned this while addressing FICCI's Capital Market Conference to demonstrate Sebi's approach to rules, which will be guided by evidence and logic rather than dogma.
Currently, the price for delisting is determined using a reverse book-building (RBB) mechanism. The public shareholders are invited to tender their shares, and the found price is that at which the acquirer's post-offer shareholding (together with the parties acting in concert) exceeds 90% of the total shares. Under certain instances, the advisory committee recommends that an acquirer be permitted to offer a set price rather than a discovered price. Other ideas include lowering the threshold for acquirers to submit a counter offer and reviewing the floor price determination process.
At the conference that took place on November 16, she said, "There was a popular belief that we will never review the delisting norms and that we will always stay with the reverse book-building process, as many of you know we floated a consultation paper and we have got a lot of feedback and at the next Board meeting we are taking that proposal to our Board." On August 14, the agency issued a consultation paper on revising the voluntary delisting standards.
On May 12, this year, a consultation paper on designating fractional ownership platforms (FOPs) as micro, small, and medium real-estate investment trusts (MSM REITs) was released.
These platforms, which enable investors to hold a portion of a real-estate property via pooled instruments, have grown in popularity over the last two to three years. According to the consultation paper, the threshold for these instruments ranges from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh.
