Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is looking to dilute 1% stake in subsidiary L&T Finance Holdings (LTFH) in order to comply with the minimum public shareholding (MPS) norms. The company proposes to sell upto 1.7 crore shares of LTFH in the next three months, said L&T in a filing to the exchanges on Thursday.
As of September 2013, L&T holds 82.53% stake in LTFH. Post the sale, the holding of L&T in LTFH would come down to 81.53%. This is still higher than the 75% promoter shareholding mandated by Sebi’s MPS norms.
Sebi, in an August 2010 notification, had asked private and public companies to pare down their promoter share-holding to 75% and 90% respectively. Companies were given three years to achieve the required share-holding. However, an exception was made in case of companies listing after August 2010, who were given three years from their date of listing to comply with the norms.
Having been listed in August 2011, LTFH has time till August 2014 to bring down its promoter share-holding to 75%.
On Thursday, LTFH was up 3.2% to Rs 82.55 per share on the BSE. L&T was up 0.3% to Rs 972.55 per share.
