FTIL looks to offload remaining 24% in MCX

NEW DELHI: Jignesh Shah-controlled Financial Technologies (India) is looking to sell the remaining 24% stake in MCX, the largest commodity futures exchange, and has asked the Securities & Exchange Board of India to remove the lock-in on selling a majority of the shares held by it.
On Tuesday, FTIL sold a little under 2% for Rs 66 crore to billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in a block deal.The company is now looking to sell another 4% to other investors, the company's chairman Venkat K Chary said, when contacted over the phone. But to comply with commodities regulator Forward Markets Commission's directive it has approached Sebi to sell the remaining 20% stake. FTIL co-founder and whole-time director Dewang Neralla has taken up the issue of selling over one crore shares with the market regulator, sources told TOI.
Earlier this month, Neralla wrote to Sebi saying that the company had agreed to a lock in the shares until March 7, 2015 but now proposes to divest the stake in the wake of the Sebi order, although he reiterated that the company has mounted a legal offensive.
When asked about the sale of the 20% stake, Chary said it was only possible after Sebi approval. "The (FTIL) management is seized of the matter and it will take appropriate steps."
The commodities regulator had said that FTIL and some key functionaries associated with the company and National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) were "not fit and proper" to to hold over 2% stake in MCX. Then, in May, FMC's new ownership guidelines said that the "unfit" entities could not hold any stake in commodity exchange. The moves followed a Rs 5,600 crore payment crisis at NSEL, which was operating without proper authorization.