The government has approved the direct listing of securities by public Indian companies on international exchanges of GIFT IFSC, a move that will boost foreign investment flows, unlock growth opportunities and broaden the investor base for Indian companies.
The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the Ministry of Finance has amended Foreign Exchange Management (Non-debt Instruments) Rules and notified the ‘Direct Listing of Equity Shares of Companies Incorporated in India on International Exchanges Scheme’. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has also issued Companies (Listing of Equity Shares in Permissible Jurisdictions) Rules, 2024 .
These rules provide an overarching regulatory framework to enable public Indian companies to issue and list their shares in permitted international exchanges. As of now, the framework allows unlisted public Indian companies to list their shares on an international exchange. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is in the process of issuing operational guidelines for listed public Indian companies.
The international stock exchanges at GIFT IFSC under the regulatory supervision of IFSCA namely, India International Exchange and NSE International Exchange have been, currently, prescribed as permitted stock exchanges under the Rules and the Scheme .
This policy initiative, to enable listing of Indian companies in GIFT IFSC, will reshape the Indian capital market landscape and offer Indian companies, especially start-ups and companies in the sunrise and technology sectors, an alternative avenue to access global capital beyond the domestic exchanges. This is expected to lead to better valuation of Indian companies in line with global standards of scale and performance .
The public Indian companies will have the flexibility to access both markets i.e. domestic market for raising capital in INR and the international market at IFSC for raising capital in foreign currency from the global investors . This initiative will particularly benefit Indian companies going global and having ambitions to look at opportunities for expanding their presence in other markets.