Sebi mulls shortening IPO listing time to 7 days

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India, or SEBI, has put primary market reforms on the fast track. It is now looking to shorten the time between the closing of an IPO and its listing to just 7 days, report CNBC-TV18's Mrinalini Krishna and Priyanka Ghosh.

 

Within one year from now, it may take just 7 days after an issue closes for it to list.

 

CB Bhave, Chairman, SEBI, says, "Even today after the primary issue closes, it takes about 20 days to list that issue. This clearly has to be unacceptable in the market. Our aim is to see that we reduce this time to one week over the next one year."

 

However, experts say this is possible if applications supported by blocked amounts, or ASBA, are available to non-retail investors as well. They say this will save time by cutting the refund process out of the equation.

 

Prithvi Haldea, MD, PRIME says," Once ASBA is extended to all investors then I think it is child's play. Then you are ensuring that every single application is captured through the ASBA process and there is no duplicate data entry, data validation and verification."

 

The regulator agrees.

 

"At present it is applicable only to retail investors and we want to make it applicable to the non-retail segment as well," Bhave says.

 

The market regulator worked magic when it took on reforms in processes governing follow-on public issues. And it is now looking to recreate this success in changing the way initial public offerings work in India making it easier for investors to invest their money.