India markets regulator to review delisting framework to ease exits

India’s markets regulator will review its delisting framework in an effort to ease capital market processes, its chairman said at a summit on Friday.

“A well-developed capital market must provide fair entry and fair exit,” chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has rolled out a series of reforms over the last few years to make the country’s capital markets more efficient and attractive to investors, including faster trade settlements and streamlined registration for foreign investors.

In 2024, the regulator permitted the delisting of companies via a fixed-price route, where shareholders are offered a pre-set exit price. The mechanism serves as an alternative to the reverse book-building process, which determines the exit price through investor bids.

The regulator also approved a voluntary delisting framework last year for public sector companies where controlling shareholders owned more than 90%.

India’s markets regulator proposes consolidated disclosure of executive pay at asset managers

SEBI will also work with other regulators to simplify know-your-customer rules for non-resident Indians, Pandey said.

Concurrently, the watchdog is reviewing the rules of the Innovators Growth Platform (IGP) for startups to help companies better access the markets for long-term capital.

The platform was introduced in 2016 as the Institutional Trading Platform to help startups raise funds and list on stock exchanges, but stringent eligibility and lock-in rules limited interest.

It was revived as the IGP in 2018, with further relaxations in 2019 and 2021 to encourage listings.