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Mumbai:
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has received 20 applications
for registration as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) from sub-accounts that
issue participatory notes (P-notes). "We
have 34 P-note issuing entities. Out of them, some are already FIIs. Those sub-accounts
that were issuing P-notes have all applied for conversion," SEBI chairman
M. Damodaran said. "Everyone
who we expected to write to us, have all written," he said. SEBI
is planning to tighten up rules on unregistered foreigners investing in the stock
market through participatory notes, because it says such flows are not transparent.
SEBI will hold a board meeting on Thursday to consider the proposals. The
Sebi chief, who had an interaction with foreign institutional investors (FIIs)
yesterday, held a closed-door meeting with brokers on the proposed guidelines
to curb foreign fund inflows through participatory notes. Around
25 brokers participated in the meeting. The brokers said they were asked to give
their concerns about the PN issue. Beyond that, they were tight-lipped on the
proceedings of the meeting. During
his meeting with FIIs yesterday, Damodaran had said that Sebi had already received
lot of responses from both domestic and foreign investors to its proposal early
last week to curb inflows through PNs in India''s stock market. "We
believe we have adequate responses to take the process forward," Damodaran
told a videoconference attended among others by representatives of Goldman Sachs,
Merill Lynch and Kotak. Reports
also said the market regulator may also allow investors not regulated in their
home countries to register as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) if they disclose
the nature of their funds and investments. The
move would help entities like pension funds register as FIIs, the SEBI chairman
was quoted as saying.
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