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Gautam Gandotra

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Partner in the General Corporate Practice at the Delhi NCR Office of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Gautam specialises in mergers & acquisitions, private equity investments and exits. He has led various transactions acting for private equity players, leading Indian and multinational corporations across various industry lines including NBFCs, retail, hospitals, mutual funds, insurance and FMCG. Gautam also advises various Indian listed companies on securities laws and corporate governance issues. Gautam holds a Masters’ in Corporate Law from New York University School of Law, where he was a Hauser Global Scholar. He can be reached at gautam.gandotra@cyrilshroff.com

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SEBI

The concept of promoter and promoter group of a listed company finds a mention in the SEBI regulations, and assumes significance as it impacts a wide range of M&A transactions involving listed companies. After closing in a change in control deal, one needs to follow the conditions prescribed in Regulation 31A of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (LODR Regulations), to re-classify the outgoing promoter. The conditions in Regulation 31A are onerous, cumbersome, and not in consonance with the way the transacting parties and market participants think. We will also explain below how Regulation 31A is not in consonance with the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations), and does not reflect the realities of deal making and therefore, needs a change.…

Continue Reading Fresh Look Needed for Re-Classification of Promoters

SEBI Delisting Regime

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”), after much deliberation, replaced the 2009 SEBI Delisting Regulations with the SEBI Delisting Regulations in 2021. The current delisting regime is essentially under two routes, (i) voluntary delisting by the exiting promoters under the SEBI Delisting Regulations, and (ii) delisting by non-promoters/ third party acquirers under Regulation 5A of the SEBI Takeover Regulations.…

Continue Reading Need for Amendments to the Delisting Regime in India

Takeover of Publicly Traded Companies Flashback 2022

It was a buzzing year for control deals in India. Year 2022 saw 93 control deals in the listed space, implemented through the tender offer route under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations)[1]. This marks the highest number of tender offers in the last five years.…

Continue Reading Takeover of Publicly Traded Companies: Flashback 2022

Analysis of recently attempted Voluntary Delistings

The number of voluntarily delistings seen in the last 1 (one) year has surpassed the number of delistings attempted earlier in a single year. Promoters are choosing to voluntarily delist their companies from the stock exchanges for various reasons including stock market price not being reflective of true value of the company’s stock, having full control over operations (without being required to go for any public vote for critical transactions), restructuring of their group entities, greater flexibility and reducing costs related to numerous regulatory compliances.

Even the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced various amendments (mostly for tightening of procedure) under the new SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2021 (2021 Delisting Regulations). The 2021 Delisting Regulations replaced the old SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2009 (2009 Delisting Regulations). However, the key elements of a delisting process i.e. requirement of super majority of minority shareholder being in favour of the delisting proposal and the bidding process through the reserve book build (RBB) mechanism remain the same even under the new 2021 Delisting Regulations. …
Continue Reading Analysis of recently attempted Voluntary Delistings

Flashback 2021

The year 2021 saw 81 tender offers aggregating to INR 43,602 crore for acquisition of shares of publicly traded companies in India under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations)[1]. This is higher in terms of both value and number when compared to the pandemic-hit 2020 and the pre-pandemic 2019. During this period, strategic players took centre-stage in driving deal activities, making 78 out of 81 tender offers.…

Continue Reading Takeover of Publicly Traded Companies: Flashback 2021

Takeover of Publicly Traded Companies - Flashback 2020

 India’s twin achievement of receiving the highest-ever FDI[1] and touching record highs at the bourses[2] occurred in the Financial Year 2020-2021. While the former came about in the first five months of the fiscal year (i.e. during the COVID-19 lockdown), the latter took place near the end of the calendar year 2020.

The year 2020 saw unprecedented business disruption due to the pandemic. Many Indian businesses were forced to reorganise and innovate to tackle the pandemic, which also resulted in revaluation of many firms by their acquirers. Cash rich and savvy investors took advantage of this unrivalled opportunity to make acquisitions and investments which is evident from the overall high deal activity in the calendar year 2020, especially in Q4.
Continue Reading Takeover of Publicly Traded Companies: Flashback 2020

Control Premium: Analysis of Recent Top Deals and What 2020 is Likely to See

While of all us are getting used the to the new normal and are hoping that the worst will be behind us soon, we thought it would be great to share with you (i) our analysis of control premium paid in top takeover transactions of publicly traded companies in the last three financial years, and (ii) our thoughts on the way pricing trends will shape up in 2020 and what regulators should do about the current pricing regime for M&A transactions.

Part A deals with our analysis of ‘control premium’ paid in top 20 control deals (involving tender offers) in each of the last three financial years, aggregating to a total of top 60 control deals. Part B deals with the broad parameters of the way regulatory regime should change to allow pricing flexibility and exemption from open offer so that the regime is more contextual to enable deal making in the current market situation; we call it the ‘Deal Freedom’.
Continue Reading Control Premium: Analysis of Recent Top Deals and What 2020 is Likely to See 

Control deals Tender offers 2019 - Takeover regulations

Control deals are gaining popularity because of the ability of the incoming controlling shareholder to control the ‘when’ and ‘how’ of the functioning of the business that is housed in the company. Additionally, the stigma associated with promoter’s relinquishing control of their companies is on the wane in India. Despite the market conditions, 2019 saw a fair deal of control transactions in the country. For such category of deals, calendar year 2019 was comparable to calendar year 2018 in number and value terms.

In this blog, we are sharing with you our analysis of control transactions in which exit was offered to public shareholders through the tender offer route in 2019[1], under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations). We will be sharing a detailed report on the 2019 activity of such transactions separately.
Continue Reading Control Deals Involving Tender Offers: Flashback 2019

Regulation 22(2A) of SEBI Takeover Regulations

A question that comes up regularly in the context of an underlying secondary transaction that triggers an open offer is whether such a transaction can be closed on the stock exchange? This is due to reservations expressed by the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in relation to the interpretation of certain provisions of the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations).

This has led to unintended consequences, which cast a doubt on the legality of the on-market closure of underlying share purchase transactions. The shadow of this doubt unfortunately extends to on-market closures even if the on-market closure follows the completion of the open-offer process. In this blog post[1] we would like to clarify that the on-market closure of underlying transactions is not contrary to Takeover Regulations and the provisions of Takeover Regulations are not subject to multiple interpretations on this aspect.[2]…
Continue Reading Regulation 22(2A) of SEBI Takeover Regulations : Is On-Market Closure of Underlying Transactions Prohibited?

Tender offers in India 2018

January to December 2018 was a more active year compared to 2017 for tender offers made under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (Takeover Regulations).

Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) saw a particularly high number of tender offers. These included tender offers for Tourism Finance Corporation of India Limited, Pranami Credits Limited and LKP Finance Limited. But while the NBFC space may have had the greatest number of tender offers, the highest tender offers in terms of size/value were in banking (IDBI Bank Limited), healthcare (Fortis Healthcare Limited), pharmaceuticals (Merck Limited), and cable & broadband (Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited and Den Networks Limited) sectors.
Continue Reading Tender Offers in 2018: The Year That Was