Sebi unlikely to hold back NSE IPO after 6-month ban: Limaye

Vikram Limaye, Managing Director and CEO of the National Stock Exchange of India, said the Sebi order on co-location issue 69123095 67499087 59631028 which came out on Tuesday evening will have no implications on its talks with SGX. In an interview with Rajesh Mascarenhas and Sanam Mirchandani, Limaye said that there will be no implications on the functioning of the NSE as a result of the SEBI order.Edited excerpts:Are you going to contest the Sebi order? What action are you going to take against your employees who have been named in the order?It has just come out right now. We need to get legal advice in terms of what the implications are, what the different options available are and then decide on the course of action.What does the order mean for your IPO plans?Sebi has said NSE cannot access the markets for six months. The IPO can’t happen for six months, but after that obviously, the implication of this order is that they will not hold up IPO. It is something that we will look into now that we have a final order. Till this point in time, we have a letter from the SEBI that says we cannot file a DRHP till this matter is resolved.So will you be initiating the IPO process now?No. It depends on what course of action we take surrounding this order and what the implications of that are on the IPO. I have to get holistic advice in terms of what the interpretation of this is. Depending on that we will decide on the course of action.How will your co-location business be impacted from this order?There won't be any impact on co-location or NSE business. NSE is a critical market infrastructure institution. Given the market share that we have, the entire market is on NSE. The trust on Indian markets and the trust in NSE is rock solid. This relates to a matter of 2010 to 2014. People have continued to invest in markets, people have continued to invest on NSE. Our market share in the last couple of years has only grown. Our markets are very well regulated and disciplined. This order has no implications on the functioning of NSE as a stock exchange or as a market infrastructure institution. From an investor perspective, the trust in NSE and the markets will continue.Sebi has barred you from launching any new product for the next six months. How will it impact your business and the deal with SGX?There are two things. One is, they have said any new derivative contracts — which means that all the existing products and the existing business continue the way they were. If we were planning to launch a new derivative product then that is something that we will have to push out for six months. There is no implication on the SGX matter because it is about transitioning liquidity from Singapore to GIFT city on an existing SGX Nifty futures contract. It is not launching any new derivatives contract. It is shifting, consolidating the liquidity in Nifty in GIFT city and transitioning the liquidity that exists in the Nifty and Singapore to GIFT city. This order has no implication on that.So this order does not debar you from launching new products in your GIFT City operations?It has nothing to do with the point you made about our discussions with Singapore stock exchange on transitioning the liquidity that exists in the Singapore Nifty contract to GIFT city. It is an existing old product, not new. They are prevented from introducing any new derivative contract. Tomorrow, if I want to design a new product in some other index, say auto index, if I want to launch some derivatives contract on automobile index, that I can't do. If I have to introduce a new product, I can't do that for six months. My existing products will obviously continue the way they are.Are you allowed to launch new products in GIFT City?If I want to take a strict interpretation of not being allowed to launch any new derivative contract for six months, this is on NSE , not on NSE GIFT city because NSE GIFT City is a separate exchange. This relates to NSE and its co-location matter surrounding 2010 to 2014.

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2vBqIoJ