Sebi's Swachata Abhiyan
Sebi's Swachata Abhiyan SEBI plans to delist more than 4,000 listed companies whose shares aren’t actively traded, as it tightens supervision of Asia’s fourth-largest stock market. The clean up includes 1,200 companies whose shares have been suspended from trading on the BSE Ltd. and the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. for the past seven years, U.K. Sinha, chairman of the Securities & Exchange Board of India, said in Mumbai. The 3,000 companies listed on the defunct reg ional bourses would also face the axe, he said. “Having a large number of listed companies is a source of nuisance,” Sinha said. “They were being used to manipulate markets and avoid taxes. Cleaning up is a focus area this year.” SEBI, in a bid to weed out illiquid stocks, in January allowed owners of small companies, where trading had been less than 10 percent of the total shares in the previous 12 months, to take them private. While more than 5,400 companies are listed on the BSE, the top 500 ...