According to the article, the Sebi board panel has advised lowering the threshold limit and the period for fulfilment of the repurchase offer to 10%.

“Under the stock exchange route, there is a possibility of one shareholder’s entire trade getting matched with the purchase order placed by the company and thus depriving other shareholders to avail the benefit of buyback,” the report said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India Sebi board is expected to introduce sweeping changes related to share buyback rules, tighter disclosure rules for listed companies, and stronger governance at market infrastructure institutions at its meeting tomorrow, according to The Economic Times on December 19.

According to the ET, the proposal to modify share purchase standards is based on the conclusions of Keki Mistry’s research, as these are prone to abuse. SEBI has formed a sub-group led by Keki Mistry to suggest improvements to the open market buyback procedure in order to make it more efficient and shareholder-friendly.

In April 2025, the panel proposed closing the open market option to buyback offers.

The market regulator now requires that open-market buybacks be less than 15% of the company’s paid-up capital and free reserves, with a six-month deadline from the moment the offer starts.

According to reports, the Sebi panel has proposed lowering the threshold limit and the period for fulfilment of the repurchase offer to 10% and 66 days beginning April 1, 2023, and subsequently to 5% and 22 days beginning April 1, 2024.

Portfolio managers document their investment philosophy in the investment approach (‘IA’), in order to achieve the client’s investment objectives. The circular from the market regulator said, “Now, in addition to IA, an additional layer of broadly defined investment themes called “Strategies”

shall be adopted by Portfolio Managers. These broad Strategies shall be ‘Equity’, ‘Debt’, ‘Hybrid’ and ‘Multi Asset’.”

After an IA is assigned a strategy and/or a benchmark, it can only be altered after allowing the IA’s subscribers the chance to depart without incurring any exit burden. Furthermore, the IA’s historical performance track record cannot be used by the Portfolio Manager for performance reporting. According to the circular, this would be confirmed as part of the yearly audit under Regulation 30 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Portfolio Managers) Regulations, 2020 (‘PM Regulations’).

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