Sebi starts probe into Mascon Global

Virendra Verma

Mumbai, Aug 10: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has started a full-fledged investigation in software company Mascon Global Ltd (MGL) scrip. The investigation into the MGL stock follows the initial probe by the market regulator which found irregular price movements and possibility of manipulation.

The stock price of MGL have fallen sharply since the beginning of this year. From a high of around Rs 550 in January this year, it has fallen to the current levels of Rs 37.

The stock price had started falling after the company announced to merge itself with another software company Maars Software in February this year. However, the merger had to be called off last month due to the fall in the stock price.

Sebi sources said that in the initial probe, there has been uneven stock price movements and looks like the possibility of stock price manipulation. The market regulator would now go into details of the stock trades of the last 12 months to find out details of the buying and selling brokers.

MGL stock came into limelight from 1999 and during the peak of the stock market touched high of around Rs 4,000.

Market sources said that the sharp rise in the stock price was mainly due to the involvement of Ketan Parekh. Sebi sources said that this issue will be also be investigated.

The market players have now started doubting the proposal to call off the merger with Maars Software. At the time of calling off the merger, both the companies had stated that given the current stock market conditions, the merger at this stage is not in the best interest of shareholders.

However the management of both the companies stated that synergies between them continued to be extremely strong and a worldwide strategic alliance made very good business sense.