The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) floated a consultation paper on Thursday proposing amendments to the rules governing delisting of shares from stock exchanges.
The proposed changes are aimed to simplify the reverse book building process and achieve better price discovery in delisting, the capital markets regulator said in its discussion paper.
SEBI said that introducing a price band may be detrimental to the interest of shareholders and proposed to amend the reverse book building process by allowing promoters to make a counter-offer to the shareholders if the price discovered through the process is not attractive to the promoter.
“Currently, the promoter (can) unilaterally reject the price and the whole exercise becomes futile if the price discovered through reverse book building is not attractive. If the counter-offer is lucrative to the shareholders and if it is accepted, delisting should be treated successful,” SEBI said in its discussion paper.
SEBI also proposed that in cases where a promoter makes a counter-offer, its price should not be less than the book value. If the promoter garners shares that take its shareholding to 90% or above through such a route, then the counter-offer should be accepted by such number of public shareholders.
The regulator is seeking public comments till 16 August.