Shares in Multi-Commodity Exchange of India Ltd were up over 10 percent on Friday on speculation that one or more strategic investors could be shortly picking up a stake in the company.
Earlier this week, the Forward Markets Commission declared Financial Technologies India Limited--which holds 26 percent in MCX--as not being 'fit and proper' to run a bourse, and directed it to reduce its stake in MCX to 2 percent.
Jignesh Shah, founder of FTIL, too was declared as unfit to be in the management team or on the board of a bourse. The FMC order follows a probe by the regulator into the Rs 5,500-crore fraud at FTIL subsidiary National Spot Exchange in July this year.
Also read: Jignesh Shah biggest beneficiary of NSEL fraud, says FMC
But a stake sale in MCX may not be a given, considering that FTIL is learnt to be planning to contest the FMC order.
After the NSEL scam broke, MCX shares plunged from around Rs 700 to Rs 238 in two weeks by mid-August. Buzz about FTIL selling out to a strategic investor attracted buyers, and the stock climbed to Rs 512 by mid-October.
But the stock has been trading in a band of Rs 400-500 since then, as investors are wary of two factors. One, FTIL is fighting hard to retain its equity stake in MCX even though institutions now control the board. Two, MCX has suffered a decline in traded turnover, and consequently revenues, as a result of the commodities transaction tax from July 1.
The FMC recently allowed US private-equity player Blackstone to up its stake in the bourse to 4.99 percent, making it the largest non-promoter shareholder.
Interestingly, another institutional shareowner in the exchange is Euronext NV (4.73 percent stake), whose parent InterContinental Exchange also holds equity in NCDEX, an MCX rival.
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