New Delhi, June 19
In a move that could mark the return of retail investors to the primary equity market, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has initiated reforms that will entail 38 PSUs to offload shares worth Rs 60,000 crore in the market.

The market regulator also approved the proposal for framing a common Know Your Customer (KYC) norm for the entire financial sector.

These steps were taken at the SEBI board meeting, the first meeting after the Modi government came to power. Many of these decisions are geared towards making rules clearer so that more companies can raise funds from the market.

SEBI has made it mandatory for all listed PSUs to have at least 25% public shareholding within three years. SEBI board said "rules for the market should be uniform across all companies and should be promoter neutral".

Under the current rule, while non-PSUs are required to have minimum 25% public shareholding, PSUs are required to have only 10%, which SEBI said "is discriminatory and inconsistent with the broader market design".

The move is expected to help the government raise close to Rs 60,000 crore through sale of excess shares in 38 state-run companies.

While these PSU offers will also create more investor interest and help government run companies to raise funds, it will also give the government the leverage to raise resources through divestment under a regulatory mandate.

SEBI today approved the proposal for sharing of KYC (Know your Client) information with entities regulated by other financial sector watchdogs. This will help to ease the procedural hassle of the investors to fill many forms every time they deal with a financial intermediary for various financial products such as insurance, mutual funds, stock broking, IPO, debt market among others.

SEBI said the centralized KYC system introduced by SEBI had evolved and stabilised with data of about 1.95 crore KYCs of investors. The client who has already done the KYC with any SEBI registered intermediary need not undergo the same process again when he approaches another intermediary.

At present, the facility of sharing of KYC information is available only among SEBI registered intermediaries. SEBI board has now approved the amendment to sharing of KYC information available on the centralised system with the entities regulated by other financial sector regulators. This would further facilitate the KYC process for the investors in the entire financial sector. SEBI said this would reduce the paper-work and bring down operation costs for investors and intermediaries.

Another proposal approved by the board included easing of the offer for sale (OFS) norms wherein retail investors would be provided with 10% reservation and sellers of shares may also give discounts to retail investors.

Singapore, June 19
In fresh troubles for Indian carrier Jet Airways' alliance with Abu Dhabi's Etihad, the fair trade watchdog in Singapore has begun a scrutiny of the deal to probe any possible violations of its competition laws.

The deal, which involves purchase of a 24% stake in Naresh Goyal-led Jet for about Rs 2,060 crore by Etihad and other tie-ups, has been going through turbulent times ever since it was announced more than a year ago in April 2013.

After months of scrutiny, the deal got consummated late last year after clearance by various Indian regulators, including the Competition Commission of India) and SEBI.

However, the deal has now come under the scanner of the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS), as the alliance "relates to the provision of international air passenger transport services (and associated support services), with a specific focus on the Singapore origin and destination city pairs".

The CCS said in a notification that it was seeking feedback from the public and other stakeholders till July 11, after which it would take its final call on the deal.

The notification was issued "in relation to Section 34 of the Competition Act which prohibits agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings or concerted practices which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within Singapore."

The CCS further said the Jet-Etihad alliance "includes pricing, route and schedule coordination, marketing, code-sharing, networks, customer service and resourcing decisions between the parties."

"The parties envisage that the Proposed Commercial Alliance will result in various efficiencies and synergies. These include lower administrative costs, sharing of joint resources, better customer services and efficient administration of the Parties' respective businesses,” it added.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad is the national airlines of the United Arab Emirates and it operates to over 85 passenger and cargo destinations in over 50 countries.

Jet is a leading airline in India, operating to over 50 domestic and 20 international destinations.

The two carriers are members of any of the three major international aviation alliances (Star Alliance, oneworld and Sky Team), the CCS said. — PTI

New Delhi, June 19
Facebook today experienced a global outage that left its over 1.2 billion users, including those in India, unable to access the world's largest social networking portal.

For about 30 minutes, users logging into the website saw the message: "Sorry something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can." The services were later resumed.

A Facebook spokesperson here said "an issue" prevented some users from posting on Facebook.

"Earlier this morning, we experienced an issue that prevented some users from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time. We resolved the issue quickly and we are now back to 100 per cent. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused," he said, without divulging details.

In February this year, Facebook went down in the US for some time, while in October last year it faced a similar situation, with the website citing network maintenance as a reason. In August 2012, there was a similar outage.

With Facebook down, netizens took to microblogging site Twitter to vent their frustration.

While many compared the outage to an "apocalypse", others mocked the situation saying "people may now have to talk to each other face to face".

In India, #facebookdown was one of the top trending topics on Twitter.

Facebook has over 1.2 billion users globally, of which over 100 million are from India, its second-largest user base. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Ford India launches Fiesta sedan at Rs 7.69 lakh
New Delhi: Ford India on Thursday launched another version of its mid-sized sedan Fiesta, priced up to Rs 9.29 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The 2014 Ford Fiesta will be available in three options — Ambiente, Trend and Titanium, all powered by 1.5 litre diesel engine, the firm said. The Ambiente will be available at Rs 7.69 lakh, while the Trend comes at Rs 8.56 lakh and Titanium is tagged at Rs 9.29 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). — PTI

BSNL starts voice SMS service in Punjab
New Delhi: BSNL has launched a voice SMS service in Punjab, which will be extended across the country in a phased manner. The service allows customers to record their voice by dialling a 10-digit code and send it as a message. Similarly, the voice SMS can be retrieved by dialling a short code. The submission and retrieval of voice SMS will be charged 75 paise per minute. —PTI

Cairn to invest $200 m in Rajasthan gas field
New Delhi: Cairn India Ltd has said it will invest $200 million over the next three years in developing natural gas finds in the largely oil-bearing Rajasthan block. The $200 million investment during FY2015-17 will be towards developing the existing Raageshwari Deep Gas field and associated field facilities and pipeline, Cairn said in its 2013-14 annual report. — PTI