E-book mechanism must for private placement of debt issues from today

The move will help streamline procedures for issuance of debt securities on private placement basis, enhancing efficiency, transparency of the price discovery mechanism and improving liquidity in the secondary market. 

It will be optional for the issues below Rs 500 crore, but the issuers will have to disclose coupon, yield, amount raised, number of investors and category of investors to the Electronic Book Provider or to the information repository for corporate debt market, in the format as specified by Sebi.

All investors, including institutional as well as HNI’s arrangers, are allowed to bid through this platform. Arrangers include merchant bankers, RBI registered primary dealers or any other registered intermediaries as notified by Sebi from time to time.

Such an electronic book may be created by entities to be named as Electronic Book Providers (EBPs) that would provide all bids/ application to the issuer after end of bidding.