NSE seeks market regulator Sebi nod for self listing

MUMBAI: Under pressure from the investors to get listed, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) has approached the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to allow it to list on its own platform. Sebi norms do not allow exchanges to self-list. NSE’s dilemma is that it does not want to make its shares public on rival bourse BSE.

"It has been clearly articulated by the management recently that the board has taken a view to go ahead with the listing and there is every confidence that NSE will list in short order," Ravi Narain, vice chairman, National Stock Exchange, told ET.

"However, the key issue that remains is that of securing approval for self-listing in the sense that given NSE’s superior liquidity, efficiency in price discovery and the potential to be included in NSE’s flagship indices, not to do so will be highly inappropriate and unfair to the investor community".

Foreign and domestic institutional investors in NSE have been pushing the management to list for a while. Foreign investors, such as Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), NYSE Group, General Atlantic LLC, SAIF Partners, Goldman Sachs, Tiger Global, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Actis LLP together hold 38 per cent stake in NSE, approached the government to expedite the process for listing of stock exchanges.

The listing of exchanges have been on hold for a long time in India, even as the regulator Sebi had put in place a regulatory framework for this three years ago.

BSE, which had filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi in 2012, has been awaiting a go-ahead from the regulator. Since then, BSE has approached Sebi several times with its plans for an IPO.