Sebi halves post-buyback cooling off period for firms to six months

Move seen as a boost to corporate repurchase programmes, may make fund raising easier as well

The market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), on Wednesday eased the 12-month cooling-off period that companies have to observe between buybacks and equity fundraising. The move is seen as an incentive to corporates to announce share repurchase programmes to support their share prices battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under Section 24(i)(f) of Sebi’s buyback regulations, a company is restricted from raising further capital for one year from the expiry of the buyback period.

“To enable quicker access to capital, it has been decided