Sebi fines 6 merchant bankers in CARE IPO

Merchant bankers include Kotak Mahindra, DSP Merrill Lynch, Edelweiss, ICICI, IDBI and SBI

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on six investment banks that handled the initial public offering (IPO) of rating agency Credit Analysis and Research (CARE). 

The six — Kotak Mahindra Capital, DSP Merrill Lynch, Edelweiss Financial Services, ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital Market Services and SBI Capital Market Services — were charged for failing to make adequate disclosure in CARE’s offer document.

CARE had raised Rs 500 crore through an IPO in December 2012. In the 86-page order, Sebi’s Adjudicating Officer Anita Kenkare said, “While making disclosures in the red herring prospectus, the lead managers cannot pick and choose some material facts that they prefer to disclose and suppress some material facts.”

In their defence, the bankers said they had taken care and applied diligence while working on the IPO prospectus. The further said the non-disclosure caused no loss to the investors.

Sebi in the order also observed that the six bankers in the past five years have received administrative warnings from the market regulator.

“The noticees (the six banks) shall be jointly and severally liable to pay the said monetary penalty, which will be commensurate with the violations committed...” said the Sebi order.