Merchant Banking under SEBI Guidelines

This paper examines the economic and financial implications of some of the regulations introduced by the new Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) through the guidelines it has periodically issued. The regulations apply to investment or merchant banking services required for corporate issues of long-term securities in India, The authors find that some implications of the guidelines may be in conflict with the professed objective of the current economic policy to induce the corporate sector to raise external funds from private investors. Further, the guidelines may be self-defeating in that they may result in less, rather than more, information for the investing public about the typically unobservable quality of a new issue.