Dec 27, 2013

ANOTHER COSMETIC STEP: SEBI ALLOWS ‘CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION’ IN IPO ADVERTISEMENTS

SEBI ALLOWS ‘CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION’ IN IPO ADVERTISEMENTS


In an attempt to liven up the primary stock market, the market regulator SEBI has decided to allow companies to use creativity and innovative advertisements, of course with the necessary disclosures and information as mandated.
Since, the 2010 Coal India IPO, there has been not meaningful IPO in Indian markets. The primary market has been languishing; no wonder why it is so; as the secondary market is also in doldrums amidst the exodus of retail investors. It has been the foreign institutional investors who have been holding the market at near lifetime highs and keep it going; is a harsh fact of the time.
The Indian IPO market has been sluggish for almost three years and IPO proposals worth Rs 72,000 crore are yet to hit the market despite having got regulatory clearance.
Among various reforms, Sebi has introduced an e-IPO mechanism through which investments can be done online without signing any physical documents. This has helped fast-track the public offer processing time. 
On account of streamlining of process and other external factors, the average time taken for processing offer documents has also come down from 152 days to 48 days.
Besides, a facility to procure and submit IPO forms is now available to investors in more than 1,000 locations, as SEBI has allowed use of stock broker network of stock exchanges for submitting applications. 
The investors are also now directly able to submit ASBA (Amount Supported by Blocked Amount) applications in more than 67,000 bank branches as against less than 10,000 branches that existed earlier.


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