Financial Technologies soars over 25% in two days

The stock has rallied nearly 7% to Rs 238, extending its Friday's 20% surge on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Shares of Financial Technologies India (FTIL) have rallied nearly 7% to Rs 238, extending its Friday’s 20% surge, on buzz that the company has sold its partial stake in Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) via open market transaction.

The stock opened at Rs 230 and touched a low of Rs 222 on the BSE. A combined 4.99 million shares have changed hands on the counter till 1005 hours against an average 3 million shares that were traded daily on the BSE and NSE.

Today, at 9.15, around 1.48 million shares representing 2.9% of total equity of MCX have changed hands at a price of Rs 568 per share via single block deal, the BSE data shows. The name of buyers and sellers were not immediately known.

MCX, on 26 December said that it would ask the parent company to reduce its stake in the exchange to 2% from 26% within a month, in accordance with Forward Market Commission’s (FMC) 17 December order which directed FTIL to lower its stake. The regulator said FTIL wasn’t “fit and proper” to run an exchange.

On Friday, 3 January, after market hours MCX said that the Exchange, being a regulated entity by the FMC, any acquisition in excess of 2 % or more of the paid-up equity capital of MCX has to satisfy the criteria of "fit and proper person" for becoming a share holder of the Exchange as prescribed under the guidelines issued by the Government of India for capital structure of commodity exchanges post 5-years of operation.

The company made the statement on clarification on to a news report in a Financial daily about "UCX eyes FTIL's stake in MCX" and article titled “Bombay Bullion Association Plans to buy 5% stake in MCX.

Meanwhile, the board of MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX) has approved a 1:1 rights issue, by which existing shareholders in the exchange will be given an option to purchase additional shares in the same proportion as their current stake in order to bring the shareholding in line with Stock Exchanges and Clearing Corporations (SECC) Regulations, 2012, the Business Standard report suggests.

MCX and FTIL, the two promoters of the exchange, are required to reduce their shareholding in the exchange to 5% to be in compliance with the SECC regulations.