SEBI revises guidelines for promoter sales through SEs

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has revised the guidelines for on offer for sale (OFS) of shares by promoters through the stock exchange mechanism.

The facility of offer for sale of shares will be available on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), a SBI circular said today.

This facility can be availed of by promoters/promoter group entities that are eligible for trading and are required to increase public shareholding to meet the minimum public shareholding requirements and promoters/ promoter group entities of top 100 companies based on average market capitalisation of the last completed quarter.

For this, the promoter/promoter group entities should not have purchased and/or sold the shares of the company in the 12 weeks prior to the offer and they should undertake not to purchase and/or sell shares of the company in the 12 weeks period after the offer.

However, within the cooling off period of +12 weeks, the promoter(s)/promoter group entities can offer their shares only through OFS/ institutional placement programme (IPP) with a gap of 2 weeks between successive offers.

These are also applicable to promoters/promoter group entities that have already offered their shares through OFS/IPP.