Ruchi Soya reschedules board meeting to decide FPO issue price to March 31
Ruchi Soya has rescheduled its board meeting to March 31 to determine the follow-on public offer (FPO) issue price. The board was initially supposed to meet on March 29.
On March 28, the markets regulator Sebi had asked the company to allow investors to withdraw their applications. The window will remain open till March 30.
According to the revised timelines, finalisation of allotment will happen by April 5, initiation of refunds (if any for anchor investors) or unblocking of funds will be done on April 6 and credit of shares will take place on April 7.
The edible oil firm on Tuesday also said that it had lodged a first information report (FIR) on March 27, 2022, with the Haridwar police against a message that was circulating on social media, which prompted the market regulator to act. The FIR was filed under Section 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Ruchi Soya said the message circulating on social media was not issued by them or any of its directors, promoters, promoter group or group companies.
Even though the company has filed an FIR ahead of the regulator’s directive, experts say it would be hard to monitor or track messages on social media unless the regulator has the requisite technological capabilities to track the origin of the messages like the one that was doing the rounds on Ruchi Soya.
Commenting on the issue, Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of InGovern, a proxy advisory firm, said: “This is a high profile company. Sebi would have likely taken action, based on some evidence or inputs. It would have more evidence than some random person sending a message. The role of Sebi becomes important and the tools it employs to crackdown on social media messages will be important. At the end of the day, the market regulator has to employ newer tools to curb and track all these kinds of price manipulative activities.”
Despite the directive by the regulator, from what the trend suggests, the issue will still get subscribed.
Subramanian added that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) should put out ‘dos and don’ts’ on what companies can do on social media. In the past few months, Sebi has already cracked down on social media stock tips.