CSE plans stricter enforcement rules on disclosures
View(s):The Colombo Stock Exchange is planning some enforcement rules pertaining to their ‘Continuous Listing Requirements’ to take ‘errant bad boys’ to task, officials said.
There have been some issues in terms of Section 7.8 of the Listing Rules of the CSE, which specify immediate disclosure pertaining to a firm’s share dealing. The CSE has found instances where these disclosures aren’t immediate and has had ‘one-to-ones’ with certain offenders who complied after many ‘calls’ warning them to meet with the rules, officials said.
The most recent incident was a disclosure dealing in relevant dealings in shares at Anilana Hotels and Properties PLC which the company disclosed early last month, but was far from an immediate disclosure. There were 17 sales of shares of Anilana Hotels and Properties PLC by Investors Access Equities (Pvt) Ltd that were disclosed on July 7, but they happened from May 12 to June 23.
The dealings were by Asanga Chandana Seneviratne, Managing Director of Anilana Hotels and Properties PLC. All shares were sold at Rs. 1.30 barring a parcel of 5,000 shares at Rs. 1.40 on May 18.
In another instance, the date of transaction was November 10, 2016 but the particular incident was disclosed to the CSE only on February 8 this year, and CSE had warned the particular firm. Adam Investments PLC had disclosed two transactions on June 1 while the transactions were in January this year.
This was a clear breach of CSE rules. The CSE will be scrutinising firms in future pertaining to such instances and the new regulations will deter offenders from delayed disclosures, officials added, declining to state what these new rules are.
Public companies are required to disclose meaningful financial and other information to the public as it provides a common pool of knowledge for all investors to use to judge for themselves whether to buy, sell or hold a particular security. Only through the steady flow of timely, complete, and exact information can people make sound investment decisions, officials said.
Earlier the Securities and Exchange Commission had directed the exchange to amend the listing rules on disclosure requirements in relation to related party transactions of listed firms in September 2010. This was after a Business Times story that same month highlighting this issue pertaining to listed firm directors’ disclosures.