FTIL board to meet on May 10 to finalise bidders for MCX stake

Crisis-hit Financial Technologies India Limited was today unable to finalise bidders for sale of its 24 per cent stake in commodity exchange MCX and said its board will meet again on May 10.
FTIL board today reviewed the progress on divestment of 24 per cent stake in MCX since the last meeting of April 25. The board was to deliberate on the final bidder at today's meting, FTIL said in a statement here.
After MCX released executive summary of the report of special audit conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, some bidders had sought the full report and also further information about MCX.

"Their requests have been sent to MCX by our merchant bankers. In view of this, the bidders have not submitted the binding bids," the release said.
Following Rs 5,500-crore payment crisis at group company NSEL, commodity market regulator FMC in December declared that FTIL was "not fit and proper" to hold more than two per cent stake in Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). It asked paring of FTIL's stake to 2 per cent from the current 26 per cent.
According to the extract of the PwC audit report released earlier this week, MCX had entered into agreements with related trading parties and paid about Rs 709 crore and group firms without following proper documentation process.

MCX had released parts of the PwC report on the BSE with disclaimers that "contents are yet to be independently verified by the company".
FTIL rejected the PwC audit report and said it would take legal action against the bourse and PwC for painting a wrong picture in the report.