SEBI Asks Listed Firms To Disclose Loan Defaults Within One Day

• SEBI tightens disclosure norms for listed companies defaulting on loan payment
  
• Firms have to make such information public within one working day
  
• This would come into force from October 1, SEBI said in a circular.
  

Tightening its disclosure norms for listed companies defaulting on loan payment from banks and other financial intuitions, market regulator SEBI on Friday asked firms to make such information public within one working day.

This will come into force from October 1, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said in a circular.

In order to address this critical gap in the availability of information to investors, SEBI has asked listed entities to inform exchanges in case it has defaulted in payment of interest, installment obligations on debt securities, loans from banks and financial institutions and external commercial borrowings (ECBs).

The companies would have to inform stock exchanges about date of default as well as date of making such disclosure, name of the lender, number of investors in the security as on date of default, details of the obligation, current default amount and gross principal amount on which the default has occurred.

Listed entities entity would also separately provide information pertaining to defaults to the concerned credit rating agencies in a timely manner and as may be specified by SEBI from time to time.

Last month, the regulator had asked listed banks to make disclosures if provisioning and NPAs assessed by RBI exceeded 15 percent of published financials.

SEBI had said that such disclosures should be made along with the annual financial results filed immediately following communication of such divergence by the RBI to the bank, The move is aimed at helping banks to recognise their stressed assets as non-performing more uniformly.

(With inputs from BloombergQuint's Vishwanath Nair)