BSE may consider IPO by end of April

After clearing the decks for listing of bourses by the capital market, regulator SEBI yesterday said that BSE Limited may be the first to list on the exchanges soon, reports CNBC-Awaaz.

The board members of BSE Limited may consider the IPO in the last week of April.

The extra ordinary meeting may be called upon for taking approval from shareholders. BSE had been formed into a company in 2007 and now has 6,000 shareholders.

The company may be valued at around Rs 3,000-4,000 crore. Three directors currently on the BSE board may have to resign.

SEBI made it mandatory for them to have 51% public holding, but banned brokers from the board. It also capped individual holding at 5% and fixed the minimum networth of the bourses at Rs 100 crore. Restrictions have also been placed on salaries of key management.

SEBI said an exchange cannot be listed on itself, which means if the BSE were to go public, it has to do so on the NSE or another exchange and vice versa.

"The stock exchanges will have diversified ownership and no single investor will be allowed to hold more than 5% except the stock exchange, depositories, insurance company, banks or public financial institutions which may hold up to 15%," SEBI said after the board meeting.

"The Board of the stock exchanges/clearing corporations will not have any trading member/clearing member representative. However, an advisory committee shall be constituted by the board, comprising trading members/ clearing members to take benefit of experience of such members," added the market regulator.

(With inputs from PTI)