Mumbai, Feb. 4: More than a dozen companies have so far disclosed that their promoters have pledged shares to raise funds for a variety of purposes.
In some cases, promoters have mortgaged as much as 70 per cent of the equity.
The disclosures come after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) made it mandatory for promoters of all listed companies to disclose the shares pledged by them.
The market regulator had given them seven days to comply.
Sebi had said that such disclosures should be made as and when the shares were pledged and also via periodic disclosures when companies declared their quarterly numbers. The market regulator has said that promoters will have to first provide details of the shares pledged to the company, which will disclose the same to the stock exchanges.
Some of the companies which have so far announced details of pledged shares include Asian Paints, Torrent Power, Balaji Telefilms, Aban Offshore, Shree Renuka Sugars, Hind Syntex, Bhuwalka Steel, Ganesh Housing Corporation, Zuari Industries, Shyam Telecom and Murudeshwar Ceramics.
In these cases, the pledged shares account for around 6-30 per cent of the companies’ equity.
However, in the case of Micro Inks, the promoters have pledged a substantial chunk of the company’s equity. MHM Holding GmbH, one of the promoters of the company, has pledged 1,75,34,718 equity shares constituting 70.5 per cent of the equity capital of the company.
Interestingly, MHM has pledged all its shares with foreign banks. Micro Inks did not disclose the reason for MHM Holding pledging the shares.
MHM Holding is an arm of the Huber Group, a major player in offset and packaging inks sector.
Micro Inks was founded by the Bilakhia Brothers and around three years ago, the Huber Group bought a majority stake in the company.
In the case of Balaji Telefilms, Jeetendra Kapoor — one of its promoters — has pledged a 6.59 per cent stake of the company with a bank.
Kapoor, from his holding of over 43.92 lakh shares (6.74 per cent), pledged 43 lakh shares.
