Listing Agency To Vet Initial Public Offers

Stressing the need to have a first entry-point for the screening of companies intending to raise funds from the capital market, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman G N Bajpai said the proposed Central Listing Authority should be outside the ambit of the market regulator.

Spelling out the need to have such a quasi-regulatory authority, Bajpai said at a seminar organised by the Institute of Company Secretaries today the proposed listing authority would look into listing agreements and carry out due diligence, which at present were often perfunctory. He said this would also eliminate the possibility of an application rejected by an exchange being accepted by another.

Bajpai said it was necessary to have the listing authority outside the purview of Sebi to give it the independence required to objectively do the due diligence exercise on new issues.