NSE nears IPO as Sebi panel clears Rs 1.8k crore settlement

MUMBAI: The long-drawn process for the listing of NSE, the country’s largest stock exchange by turnover and revenue, got a boost after a panel set up by markets regulator Sebi cleared the bourse’s settlement offer in long-pending issues popularly known as colocation and dark fibre cases. These cases, more than a decade old, related to NSE allowing early access to derivatives trading data to some preferred brokers for illegal gains.According to sources, NSE is settling the case for Rs 1,800 crore, part of which are the disgorged gains from those illegal activities. Such access was allowed under former top NSE officials including Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramakrishna. Since then, NSE has seen two MDs take charge of the bourse one after the other, with cleaning up the mess being one of their top priorities.In Jan , Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey had said that the regulator would give its ‘no objection’ to NSE to file for its IPO. After NSE received the Sebi nod, it set up a panel of top officials and board members to work on its draft prospectus for its offer, estimated to be worth Rs 23,000 crore.