Sebi okays Wipro's demerger route to public shareholding compliance

In Nov, Wipro had announced a demerger plan to hive off its non-information technology businesses into seperate company

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved Wipro's demerger route for the compliance of minimum public shareholding requirement.

“Sebi has approved the proposal for achieving compliance with minimum public shareholding requirement under Clause 40A of the Listing Agreement pursuant to the scheme of demerger including the tender offer therein,” said Wipro in a BSE filing today.

As per Clause 40A of Listing Agreement, a company is required to maintain public shareholding of at least 25 per cent of the total number of issued shares which are listed.

In November, Wipro had announced a demerger plan to hive off its non-information technology (IT) businesses into a separate company. Post, the completion of this de-merger scheme, promoter's stake in the company is expected to come down.

Currently, the promoter holding in Wipro is about 78.31 per cent. The promoters would have had to pare their holdings in the company to below 75 per cent before June 2013.

However, with Sebi approval in place, if pursuant to the demerger the promoter holdings in the company falls below 75 per cent, Wipro will be complaint of the minimum public shareholding requirement.
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