VSEL may miss Sebi deadline on voluntary closure

Market regulator had suggested voluntary closure as the exchange has failed to comply with its order to achieve the turnover of Rs 1,000 cr by May 2014

The Vadodara Stock Exchange (VSEL) is unlikely to meet the Sebi's voluntary closure deadline of tomorrow, according to a top official.

"It will be difficult for us to meet this deadline as it will be difficult to obtain signatures of several investors and shareholders before tomorrow evening as they are not in the city. A meeting of the board of directors of VSEL is also convened here on July 11 to discuss the development," said VSEL president Sushil Samdani.

The Sebi's directive had come against the backdrop of failure of two EGMs held by VSEL on May 26 and July 13 respectively, to secure the nod of shareholders on the closure.

When contacted, VSEL Managing Director Someshwara Rao said that he will submit his report after the expiry of tomorrow's deadline as per the Sebi directive.

Sebi had suggested voluntary closure as the exchange has failed to comply with its order to achieve the turnover of Rs 1,000 crore by May 2014 and a minimum net worth of Rs 100 crore by May 2015.

Meanwhile, VSE Brokers Forum president Vishnubhai Patel said: "We are for voluntary closure of VSEL and have already signed the agreement after the investors and shareholders have conceded their demands and now the ball is in the court of investors and shareholders."

Reacting to this, a broker said: "If both the groups (VSEL Brokers Forum and Investor-Shareholders) had submitted the signed copy of their agreement to SEBI ahead of time, it could have saved the situation and may have resulted into SEBI taking some soft stand on the issue. Now it is too late for VSEL.