No relaxation on Public shareholding Norms : SEBI

As per SEBI's Public shareholding Norms, all listed companies from public sectors have to have minimum 10% of public shareholding and the same will be 25% for private sectors. the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has said that it is not going to relax its norms that makes it compulsory for all listed firms to have, at least, 25% shareholding by the public.

SEBI chairman U.K. Sinha said on March13 that all listed companies from both public and private sectors will have to raise public shareholding to a minimum of 10% and 25% respectively, within the deadline and there won't be any relaxation. For the private listed companies the deadline will be June 2013 and for the public sector firms it is August 2013. Some companies are thinking that the SEBI may relax its norms on public shareholding, but SEBI chairman clearly said that this time he is going to make it compulsory for both public and private companies listed in Indian stock market. As per the latest data (February) available, Around 181 non-PSU companies which hadn’t met the shareholding norms. He said about Rs 27,000 crore will have to be mobilized by June 2013 by private sector firms and Rs 12,000 crore by public sector firms

Already many promoters of major real estate firms and private airline promoters are holding more than 80% stake in their companies. if they are not going to regulate them self then they will be affected by SEBI norms.

While talking about Initial Public Offering (IPO) process, Sinha said SEBI will come out with new guidelines on MIMPS (Manner of Increasing and Maintaining Public Shareholding in Recognized Stock Exchanges) in the another 2 months, he added.