Sebi,
The penalty imposed on Sameer Jain, vice chairman and managing director of Bennett, Coleman & Company (BCCL), his wife Meera, and four others has been reduced from Rs 1 crore to Rs 20 lakh by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
“…it has been brought to our notice that the amount of penalty has been written correctly in figures, but there has been a mistake in writing the amount of penalty in words,” Sebi stated in a correction to its previous order.
Jain and BCCL did not respond to this story until it was published.
The couple and two others were banned from entering capital markets and from holding any key managerial position in a listed company by the markets regulator in an order dated March 28.
Sebi’s activity was set off by supposed infringement of least open shareholding (MPS) and wrong revelation of advertiser shareholding by PNB Money and Enterprises (PNBFIL), a firm recorded on the Calcutta Stock Trade and which has stake in BCCL.
The Times Group owns leading media brands like the newspapers “Times of India,” “Economic Times,” radio station “Radio Mirchi,” and television news channel “Times Now.” BCCL is the flagship company of the Times Group.
According to reports, a SEBI investigation revealed that a group of 19 companies owned more than 75% of PNBFIL’s allowable shares. These companies were linked to one another through a complex web of networks and associations.
SEBI discovered associated entities with a stake in PNBFIL of 91.551%. A promoter can hold a maximum stake of 75% in a listed company under the listing rules.
“Scrutiny of the affairs of PNBFIL revealed that 8 of these 19 entities were managing the affairs of PNBFIL without disclosing themselves as promoters of the company or persons in control of the affairs and management of the company,” reads the order issued by SEBI. was in charge.”
According to the Sebi request, Sameer and Meera held 16.25 percent and 6.13 percent stake in PNBFIL. In October 2020, SEBI had given a show make notice Jain and others.
SEBI claimed that PNBFIL’s shareholding was structured “to conceal the actual Jain family shareholding.”
“There are practically no floating shares for trading and no liquidity” Whatever was available in the market… Due to this, the public investors were deprived of their right to price discovery of the company’s shares,” Sebi stated in its order. “Due to their non-compliance with the requirement of MPS, holding of controlling shares, which constitute 91.51 per cent of the total shareholding in the company, as well as voting rights.”
“The actual price discovery of the company’s shares at any time could not be done on the stock exchange platform since non-compliance with the MPS requirement was continuing for a long period of six financial years,” the order stated.
Additionally, the company was penalized by the regulator for making misleading disclosures regarding promoter shareholding.
“It has likewise been laid out that the organization has more than once revealed a misleading shareholding design, in this manner showing nothing advertisers’ shareholding and fundamentally, was uncovering that there is no advertiser element in the organization. The company has broken the rules of the SAST (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Acquisitions) Regulations, for which a annual disclosure is required by the listed, by making such false disclosures six times in annual disclosures made after the end of the financial years 2013-14 to 2018-19. company of the shareholding of its promoters in the prescribed format at the conclusion of each fiscal year,” it stated.
