MCX Lists at 34 Percent Premium on BSE; to Consider NSE Listing


Bangalore: Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX), which debuted at the BSE today with premium of over 34 percent from the IPO price, said it will consider listing on the National Stock Exchange at an appropriate time. "NSE is already the shareholder of MCX and listing on NSE will be the gradual step," MCX Vice-Chairman Jignesh Shah told reporters on the sidelines of the listing ceremony on BSE. The group company Financial Technologies is already listed on the NSE, Shah said. Although MCX had offered to list its shares on the BSE alone, NSE said in a late night circular on March 7 that it has also admitted MCX shares for trading on its platform. MCX had previously said that it would first observe the volumes on BSE for some time and then decide about NSE. However, NSE has pro-actively offered to list MCX shares on its platform. Regulations allow an exchange to add a stock in the list of 'securities permitted to trade category' even if a company has not applied itself. The MCX scrip witnessed robust buying interest in the debut trade on the stock market and saw its price soar past 1,400 level within minutes of listing. After becoming the first Indian exchange to come out with an IPO, and also the first public offer of the year 2012, MCX also became the first company to list under the new Sebi rules introducing pre-open bidding in the first-day trade of stocks listing after IPOs. The IPO got over-subscribed more than 54 times with bids worth about 36,000 crore, as against the targeted proceeds of up to Rs 663 crore through sale of 64.27 lakh shares. MCX had set a price band of Rs 860-1,032 per share for the IPO, and the final price was fixed at the top end at Rs 1,032 given the strong demand witnessed for the offer. The anchor investors were also allocated shares at the same price. Commenting on pricing of the issue, Shah said, we have decided to go ahead with the IPO in last November and were guided by our merchant bankers. "We are happy along with our selling shareholder partners that investors have subscribed in IPO in large numbers. When decision was taken for IPO, this was the right pricing," he said. On the forthcoming Budget Shah said, "We are hopeful that lot of things will come positive in this budget. All five national commodity exchanges and six regional commodity exchanges have given their inputs to the government. We feel that the right decisions are flowing and within that framework we all will perform." Refusing to comment on the Finance Ministry's proposed move to again impose a Commodities Transaction Tax (CTT), Shah said, "In 2008 it was on consideration and was rolled back. We have not heard anything on that from the government."
Source: PTI