NDTV assures smooth allotments, fast refunds

New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) on Tuesday said it would ensure that there would be no allotment glitches in its Rs 109 crore initial public offering.

The company also announced that investors would receive the refund money (in the case of oversubscription) within a fortnight from the closing date of the issue, as stipulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

These announcements appear to be sweet covenants to investors who suffered all kinds of mishandling, ranging from misallocation of shares to delay in getting refund money, by the respective registrars of ONGC, Petronet LNG, Power Trading Corporation, GAIL and Bank of Maharashtra public issues.

Addressing the media here on Tuesday, Sameer Manchanda, director, NDTV, said a dedicated team of the company was working with Karvy Consultants, registrar of the issue, to ensure that investors would not face post-issue problems, such as misallocation of shares, issue of refund cheques in incorrect names and delay in issuing refund cheques.

"Investors would get the refund, if situation demands, within 15 days from the closure of the issue. We would like to send the refund even earlier."

The issue of getting refund came to the fore with MCS, the registrar of GAIL flotation, not disbursing refund cheques even after one-and-a-half month of the closure of the issue.

MCS also fared miserably in handling the ONGC issue. Its performance was also not up to the mark as far as offers of Power Trading Corporation and Bank of Maharashtra are concerned.

Karvy, too, made huge mistakes in handling Petronet LNG issue. Especially it issued cheques in favour of wrong persons and also did not mention the bank details of the applications.

Sources at Karvy admitted that there were lapses in handling the Petronet LNG due to huge response of the offer, and added that investors should not be punished for responding to the issue.

The poor performance of registrars raised the question on the adequacy of infrastructure for handling consecutive issues in a short span of time in the capital markets.