Sebi may initiate action against Vintron Informatics

Capital market watchdog Sebi said it may initiate action against Vintron Informatics as well as the company's promoters and directors for not meeting minimum 25 per cent public shareholding requirements within the due date.
Confirming its June 2013 interim order Sebi said that Vintron Informatics had "failed to comply with the minimum public shareholding requirements...Within the stipulated timeline" and that the "company is also in continuous violation of these norms".
Further, Sebi said that it "may also initiate other action, as appropriate in law, against the company, its directors and promoters/ promoter group".
The order dated September 2 said "hereby confirm the directions issued vide the interim order dated June 4, 2013 against Vintron Informatics Ltd, its directors, promoters and promoter group".

In the earlier order, Sebi had slapped various curbs on over 100 non-compliant companies such as Vintron Informatics, their promoters and directors for not meeting the norms by June 3, 2013.
It had frozen the voting rights and corporate benefits of promoters/directors of these companies and barred them from holding new position on boards of listed firms, among others.

Vintron Informatics had submitted to Sebi, among others, that it was a sick company for which the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) had sanctioned a rehabilitation scheme.
The company had argued that it had been exempted by the order of BIFR from the requirement of maintaining the minimum public holding at 25 per cent till the end of rehabilitation period that is till March 31, 2014.

However, Sebi said that this submission of the company was "incorrect" as no such exemption was granted to it.
"In the absence of any such exemption from complying with the minimum public shareholding norms, the company should have taken steps to comply with the same when it came out of BIFR," the watchdog noted.
Noting that Vintron Informatics could have used various methods, including institutional placement programme, rights issues to the public shareholders to meet the norms, the regulator said that "in case the company was experiencing any difficulty, it could have approached Sebi with its proposed method, for approval".

However, no guidance was sought by the firm, Sebi said.