Sebi to relax norms for promoters to reclassify as ordinary shareholders

Maximum promoter holding to be eligible for reclassification to be raised from 10% to 15%; waiting time to be brought down to one month from three

Promoters of listed companies that wish to re-classify themselves as ordinary shareholders may find it easy to do so. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday proposed to relax and streamline existing re-classification process.

To begin with, the market regulator has said the eligibly threshold can be relaxed from 10 per cent to 15 per cent. Currently, only promoters that hold less than 10 per cent in a company can initiate the process of re-classifying themselves are public shareholders.

“…the persons who may have been promoters but are no longer in day-to-day control having shareholding of less