New Clause 5A&20A in Listing Agreement as amended-unclaimed shares,common notice period, dividend per share basis&voting rights pattern are the updates…

Click here for the amendments in Listing Agreement as on 24th April 2009 http://www.sebi.gov.in/circulars/2009/circfd04.pdf

All the following amendments shall come into force with immediate effect.

To put it simply,

• The unclaimed shares in escrow account shall be transferred to Demat Suspense A/c. after 3 reminders, including corporate benefits, if any and its voting rights will be frozen until claimed.
• The timelines of notice period for record date & board meeting, which were applicable only to rights issue is now made applicable for all corporate actions including mergers, demergers, bonus, buy back, etc…
• “The Issuer agrees to declare and disclose the dividend on per share basis only”.  So, you won’t see hereon 100% or 200%, etc…
• Shareholding pattern to be given for each class of security and voting rights pattern also to be given.

Uniform procedure for dealing with unclaimed shares – Insertion of clause 5A in Listing Agreement
It has been brought to the notice of the Board that there is a large quantum of shares issued pursuant to the public issues, which remain unclaimed despite the best efforts of the Registrar to Issue or Issuers and that there is no uniform practice for dealing with such shares.

It has been decided to provide a uniform procedure for dealing with unclaimed shares i.e., shares which could not be allotted to the rightful shareholder due to insufficient/incorrect information or any other reason (in escrow A/c.). Accordingly, the new Clause 5A is to be inserted, which, inter alia, provides the following:

• The unclaimed shares shall be credited to a demat suspense account opened by the issuer with one of the depository participants after giving 3 reminders at the address mentioned in the depositories database. [Cl 5A(a)]
• Any corporate benefit in terms of securities, accruing on unclaimed shares such as bonus shares, split etc., shall also be credited to such account. [Cl 5A(b)]
• Details of shareholding of each individual allottee whose shares have been credited to such suspense account shall be properly maintained by the issuer. [Cl 5A(c)]
• The allottee’s account shall be credited as and when he/she approaches the issuer, after undertaking the proper verification of identity of the allottee. [Cl 5A(d)]
• The voting rights of these shares will remain frozen till the rightful owner claims the shares. [Cl 5A(f)]
• Details (in aggregate) of shares in the suspense account including freeze on their voting rights, shall be disclosed in the Annual Report as long as there are shares in the suspense account. [Cl 5A(g)]

Notice period for Record Date and Board Meeting – Amendments to clause 16 and clause 19
It has been decided to reduce the timelines for notice period for all corporate actions like dividend, bonus, rights, mergers, demergers, splits, etc, for all scrips whether in demat or physical, whether in F&O segment or not.

The notice period for record date has been reduced to 7 working days (now there is no confusion of whether 30 days or 21 days or 15 days or 7 days) and for board meeting has been reduced to 2 working days (now there is no confusion of whether 7 days or 2 days). 

Kindly note, it is the board meeting intimation where buy back is proposed to be considered as per Cl 19(d) is also 2 working days (not 7 days as earlier).

Uniformity in dividend declaration – Insertion of clause 20A
It has been decided to mandate that listed companies shall declare their dividend on per share basis only. This is expected to bring uniformity in the manner of declaring dividend amongst the listed companies.

 

Cl 20A - “The Issuer agrees to declare and disclose the dividend on per share basis only”.

 

Shareholding pattern for each class of shares and voting rights pattern – Amendment to clause 35
It is clarified that clause 35 of the listing agreement which gives a format for disclosures of shareholding pattern, is required to be given for each class of security separately. Further, it has been decided to amend clause 35 to provide an additional format for disclosures of voting rights pattern in the company.  For the new formats, click http://www.sebi.gov.in/circulars/2009/circfd04.pdf or wait for the amendments in Listing Agreement.