Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch batted for a disclosure based regime on Tuesday and said the regulator was not in favour of dictating the pricing of initial share sales of new-age technology companies.

“A lot has been said about the pricing of the new tech companies. What’s Sebi’s view on that? Our view is simple. At what price you choose to do your IPO is your business. We have no business to suggest otherwise. The days of CCI (Controller of Capital Issues) are long gone. Companies are free to price the issues at whatever price is considered appropriate,” Buch said in her maiden public address as Sebi chief at the annual capital markets summit organised by industry lobby Ficci in Mumbai.

Buch, however, added that the company had to make the required disclosures on the rationale for the pricing, especially between a pre-initial public offering (IPO) placement and the price being asked for the public offering.

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“If a company had placed its equity with somebody three or six months before the IPO, at say Rs 100, and now wishes to hit the market with a price of Rs 450, we have no problem with that. However, the company needs to disclose to the investor the reasons for the price differential. The investor is then free to make his or her own decision,” said Buch.

Buch’s comments come in the backdrop of several new-age companies seeing a steep drop in their share prices post listing in the past year. Zomato and Paytm, for instance, are currently trading at 14% and 66% below the issue price, respectively.

Sebi is also analysing data pertaining to F&O trades and is evaluating the need for additional disclosures to help the public at large opting for derivatives trade.

“India is not a nanny state. If someone wants to trade in F&O we should not stop them. Citizens have a right to access every asset class; we don’t think we want to restrict anybody. Having said that, there is information that Sebi is looking at and evaluating in what form or manner it needs to be disclosed to the public who want to participate in the F&O market,” said Buch.

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FE had reported in July that Sebi was deliberating on ways to dissuade retail investors from recklessly punting in the equity derivatives segment, and that the regulator may mandate risk profiling and income disclosures of investors, among other things, to curb excessive trading and speculation in the segment.

In June, Sebi had reached out to the country’s top brokers, asking them to furnish details of F&O clients, including age, income range, city and the profits made from trading in the segment in the year before and after the pandemic.

Buch also reiterated the regulator’s commitment in following a consultative approach by taking in industry inputs through the various committees it had formed.

“More consultation is better. We may have regulations which may have been put in place at a time when they were right and appropriate. In today’s context, they may be completely inappropriate. We want to be led by first principles and data, and not be attached to any dogma,” she said.

She admitted that the policy for regulatory sandbox was quite restricted at the moment owing to the current framework of the Sebi Act. “Even things which we consider as good ideas we are unable to permit in a sandbox because we simply do not have the facilitative legislation. We have put in a request for those changes, as part of a larger review of the Sebi Act that is being undertaken,” said Buch.

The Sebi chairman asked the industry to work towards ridding itself of wrongdoings such as front running, insider trading and manipulation of stock prices, which she considered akin to smallpox and polio.

“Sometimes its not possible to isolate and cure. Market participants say vaccinate him, not me. But there’s a need to vaccinate everyone sometimes. To build immunity in the entire ecosystem, in order to prevent and cure,” she said.