Supreme Court will pronounce its judgement on Tata Sons / Cyrus Mistry case on 26 March. Tatas had appealed against the NCLAT order which had ordered restoration of Cyrus Mistry as the executive chairman of Tata Sons. The bench is likely to be headed by Chief Justice, S A Bobde. The Pallonji group counsel had argued that the removal of Cyrus Mistry was in violation of principles of corporate governance and the AOA of Tata Sons. Pallonji family is asking for representation in proportion to their 18.37% stake in Tata Sons. Tatas had rejected a proposal to swap the Mistry family stake with shares of Tata Group.
SEBI proposed some key changes to enhance corporate governance standards. SEBI has decided that top 1000 companies listed on the stock exchanges must have a formal dividend distribution policy. The idea is bring about greater transparency and better corporate governance. This is being extended from top 500 companies to the top 1000 companies. If board meetings extend beyond one day, financial results must be publicly announced within 30 minutes of the end of the board meeting of the day when results are considered. In addition, promoters will be required to disclose their intention to delist by making an initial public announcement. SEBI cleared the proposal for constitution of risk management committee (RMC), which will now be extended to the top-1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation instead of just 500.
India’s largest and most valuable e-learning platform, Byjus, plans to raise up to $700 million from new and existing investors. This latest round is expected to value Byjus at $15 billion; nearly 25% higher than the last round. With that valuation, Byjus will be breathing down Paytm’s neck which has a valuation of $16 billion. Byjus is in talks with Baring Partners, B-Capital and Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional for the fund raising. This will be used to fund its acquisition of Aakash Educational Services. After Whitehat, Byjus is in talks to acquire other names like Toppr and Scholr, even as Byjus doubled revenues.
GoAir, owned by the Nusli Wadia group, is planning a Rs.2500 crore IPO sometime in the early part of the next financial year. The IPO funds will be used to fire up its expansion plans. GoAir commenced operations in 2005 and has been deliberating over the IPO for last few years. GoAir is expected to file the DRHP in the second week of Apr-21. Currently, GoAir flies to 39 destinations, including 10 international locations. However, the last 1 year has been extremely testing for all airline companies on account of restrictions on travel and tourism. GoAir will be the third operational airlines to list after Indigo Airways and SpiceJet.
It has been a harrowing time for markets as investor wealth eroded by Rs.710,000 crore or nearly $100 billion in 2 days flat. After falling 871 points on Wednesday, the Sensex slid by another 740 points on Thursday as F&O expiry pressure also took its toll. Market cap of the BSE dropped below Rs.200 trillion on 25 March. In the last few days, the selling pressure has intensified due to factors like elevated bond yields, resurgence of COVID cases globally, fears of another economic slowdown and generally weak global equity markets. Among sectors, telecom, power, energy, auto and realty were among the worst hit.
In a boost for ease of doing business and to encourage the start-ups ecosystem, SEBI eased eligibility and listing criteria on the Innovators Growth Platform or IGP. As against the current requirement of 25% of its pre-issue capital being held by an institution for 2 years, SEBI has eased it to just 1 year. Now, even the companies with superior voting rights can list on IGP. SEBI has also eased the criteria to migrate from the IGP to the main board on BSE and NSE. IGP intends to provide technology start-ups a listing opportunity in a more relaxed framework. The SEBI board has also made it mandatory for the promoters to disclose their intentions to delist from the stock exchanges. In addition, independent directors of the company will have to guide minority shareholders of delisting-bound companies with a reasoned recommendation.
