SEBI has increased the ISIN maturity cap to 17 per financial year for privately placed debt securities, including capital gains tax bonds and structured debt.
Key Points
- SEBI increased the ISIN maturity cap for privately placed debt securities to 17 per financial year.
- The new cap includes 6 ISINs for capital gains tax bonds and up to 12 for plain vanilla debt securities.
- Structured, market-linked, floating rate, zero coupon, and Tier II bonds are limited to 5 ISINs.
- Government and ESG bonds are excluded from these new ISIN limits.
- The revised provisions are effective immediately.
New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) Markets regulator Sebi has relaxed norms for debt securities issued on a private placement basis, allowing an issuer to have up to 17 International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) maturing in a single financial year.
An International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) is a unique 12-character alphanumeric code used globally to identify specific securities, such as bonds, stocks, derivatives, and mutual funds.
Under the revised norms, six ISINs will be available for the issuance of the capital gains tax debt securities by the authorised issuers under section 54EC of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on a private placement basis, Sebi said in a circular on Wednesday.
Of the 17 ISINs, a maximum of 12 ISINs can mature in a financial year for plain vanilla debt securities, covering both secured and unsecured instruments, it added.
Sebi said that if the total outstanding amount across these 12 ISINs maturing in a financial year reaches Rs 15,000 crore, then one additional ISIN may be permitted for every additional issuance of Rs 3,000 crore.
A maximum of five ISINs maturing in a financial year, will be allowed for structured debt securities, market-linked debt securities, floating rate bonds, zero coupon bonds and debt capital instruments (Tier II bonds).
Existing ISINs pertaining to these bonds will be grandfathered to avoid any unintended breach of ISIN cap, Sebi said.
The regulator further excluded Government of India serviced/extra budgetary resources bonds and environment, social and governance debt securities while calculating the applicable ISIN limits for an issuer.
The provisions of this circular will come into force with immediate effect, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said.
