Sebi expedites IPO clearing process

Time taken to clear documents now reduced to less than three months, says official

Capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sped up the process for clearing offer documents for initial public offering (IPO), an official said today.

"After the rejection framework has been introduced, Sebi has taken less than three months to clear the offer documents," said V S Sundaresan, chief general manager, Sebi.

"Sebi only takes the required time to clear offer documents unlike the market perception that the documents get stuck at our end," he said.

Sundaresan said that Sebi has been keeping pace with reforms and market demands.

Under the new framework, Sebi can now reject offer documents that don't have adequate disclosures or don't meet the requirements laid down by the regulator.

Because of this rule, Sundaresan said the quality of disclosures have improved significantly.

Sebi has so far not rejected any offer documents. Sundaresan said "there has been only one case we attempted to invoke that rejection framework".

Despite a 30% rally this year, the primary market continues to be in doldrums.

So far in 2014, only five companies have launched IPOs to raise a total of around Rs 1,200 crore, lowest in more than a decade.

Less than 20 offer documents at present are seeking Sebi nod to launch IPOs.