FTIL board to take a call on MCX stake sale on May 24

Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) on Saturday said it would take a decision on divesting 24 per cent of its stake in Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) at its next board meeting, on May 24.

FTIL has so far received 10 binding bids for its MCX stake. In a press release on Saturday, the company said its board had decided that the 10 bidders would need to place their final bids in the next two weeks.

The company claims these 10 bidders remain interested in its stake in the commodity exchange in spite of the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) bringing in new guidelines for bourses. After FMC revised its norms for stakeholders in commodity exchanges, there were speculations that many keen bidders would lose interest in bidding for FTIL’s stake in MCX.

CME, Tata Capital and Warburg Pincus, are said to be forming a consortium to buy a combined 15 per cent stake in MCX. According to the new FMC guidelines, the three can buy only five per cent each. The regulator’s guidelines had also said that banks, insurers, stock exchanges and public financial institutions can hold only up to 15 per stake in a commodity exchange.

The FTIL board also said it had taken note of several recent developments, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audit report on MCX, the revised FMC norms, the resignation of MCX’s managing director & chief executive and its acceptance by the bourse’s board. FTIL also noted the updates and clarifications issued by MCX on the PWC report.