In Part 2 of our BRSR Disclosure Series, we look at Sexual Harassment at the Workplace — from the constitutional foundations and legal framework of POSH to reporting trends, key case laws and the steps organisations can take to move from awareness to action.

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The post A Workplace free of fear is a Constitutional right first appeared on MMJC.

With the buyback landscape evolving, companies with surplus cash, healthy profitability and adequate market liquidity may have reason to reassess the open-market route.

In this carousel, we explore the potential benefits, the factors that determine suitability, and what companies should evaluate while considering the optimal buyback structure.

Swipe through to explore whether an open-market buyback could unlock value for your company and its promoters.

Carousel by:
CS Yashika Dharamshi, Partner – MMJC
CS Saurabh Agarwal, Partner – MMJC

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The post Is Your Company Sitting on an Untapped Buyback Opportunity? first appeared on MMJC.

Introduction

For a promoter preparing to take a company public, a strong anchor book can feel like an early validation of the IPO. Reputed institutions coming in before the issue opens can support price discovery and signal confidence to the wider market. But there is another side to the anchor story that receives far less attention: what happens to this institutional shareholding once the IPO is listed and the lock-in begins to expire?

A recent study[i] by officers of SEBI’s Department of Economic and Policy Analysis offers some useful answers. It examines anchor investor behaviour across 242 mainboard IPOs listed between April 2022 and October 2025, with 167 IPOs also tracked for a full year. For companies considering an IPO, the findings provide an interesting perspective on how the shareholder base can evolve after listing.

Lock-in of shares allotted to the anchor investors

Since April 2022, shares allotted to anchor investors before the IPO are released in two stages. The entire anchor allotment is locked for the first 30 days after listing. After that, investors can sell half of their allotted shares, while the remaining half stays locked until the end of the 90th day. The purpose is to avoid a large volume of shares becoming available for sale all at once.

What happens when the first lock-in (30 Day) ends

But the end of the 30-day lock-in did not automatically lead to heavy selling. The important question was: how much did anchors actually sell once they were allowed to sell?

The study found a clear difference between IPOs with limited selling and those with substantial selling:

• When anchors sold 2.5% or less of their allotment, the average share-price movement between the 29th and 33rd trading days was about -0.4%.
• When anchors sold more than 10%, the average movement was approximately -3.5%, and the median decline was close to -6%.

These figures do not prove that anchor selling alone caused the price decline. Share prices can also be affected by market conditions, company-specific news and other investors’ actions. The more limited conclusion is this: when a large portion of the anchor shares was sold soon after the first lock-in ended, the stock generally experienced greater downward pressure around that period.

What happens when the second lock-in (90 Day) ends

Interestingly, the second unlock did not show the same pattern. Around the 90-day mark, share prices changed very little on average, regardless of how much the anchor investors sold.

This suggests that the 30-day unlock may be more sensitive when selling is concentrated. The 90-day unlock, however, did not appear to create similar price pressure in the IPOs studied.

But most anchors do not sell immediately after the lock-in ends

This may be the more important finding of the study.

For the 167 IPOs tracked for one year, the proportion of anchor shares sold increased steadily over time:

• 3.5% by Day 30
• 9.3% by Day 60
• 18.5% by Day 90
• 34.4% by Day 180
• 50.7% by Day 365

In other words, by the end of the first year, anchors had sold about half of the shares allotted to them at the IPO. The selling was therefore not concentrated around a single lock-in expiry. Instead, anchor ownership declined progressively throughout the first year after listing.

For an IPO-bound company, this shifts the perspective. The 30-day and 90-day lock-in expiry dates may attract considerable market attention because they are the first points at which anchor investors can begin selling their shares. However, these dates should not be viewed as the end of the anchor story. The more relevant period for the company may extend well beyond the formal lock-ins, as institutional investors continue to reassess their holdings and gradually adjust their positions after listing. In the extended sample covering 167 IPOs tracked for a full year, cumulative anchor exits reached approximately half of the aggregate anchor allotment by the end of the first year. The transition in the shareholder base is therefore typically a gradual, year-long process rather than a single event concentrated around the two lock-in expiries. The impact is that companies must be prepared for a continuing shift in institutional ownership and potential selling pressure well beyond the initial lock-in dates.

FPI vs mutual funds: who is in the anchor book also matters

The study also shows that anchors do not behave uniformly.

FPIs and mutual funds together accounted for more than 82% of anchor allotment value in the 242 IPOs studied. Yet their holding patterns were markedly different.

By Day 365, FPIs had exited approximately 60% of their aggregate anchor allotment, compared with around 38% for mutual funds. FPIs accounted for approximately ₹22,474 crore of exits during the period, while the corresponding figure for mutual funds was ₹12,228 crore.

Issue size also appears relevant. Among the IPOs tracked for a year, the smallest issue-size bucket of ₹250 crore or less recorded a 72.5% weighted exit by Day 365, compared with 40.8% for the ₹1,001–2,500 crore bucket. The study suggests that anchor exits do not move in a straight line with issue size, with both smaller and larger issues showing higher exit levels than the middle-sized issue categories.

For companies going public

Read together, these findings suggest that the anchor book is best understood as the starting point of a longer transition in institutional ownership after listing.

For promoters and management teams, the size and quality of anchor participation remain important. But the study shows that anchors may gradually reduce their holdings after the lock-in periods, with the pace of exit varying across investor categories and IPO sizes.

That is not necessarily a negative signal. Institutions invest with different mandates and time horizons, and selling is a normal part of the market. The more important question is whether the company is prepared for this change in ownership.

Anchors can help build confidence at the time of the IPO. But once listed, the company must sustain that confidence through performance, communication and a broader, more stable investor base.

[i] https://www.sebi.gov.in/reports-and-statistics/research/aug-2026/study-exit-behaviour-of-anchor-investors-in-mainboard-ipos_103612.html

This Article written by

Mr. Animesh Joshi – Associate (MMJC)

This article is published on taxguru link below.

https://taxguru.in/sebi/ipo-anchored-anchor-investors-exit.html

The post Your IPO Is Anchored. But What Happens When the Anchor Investors Leave? first appeared on MMJC.

Why did RBI feel the need to issue these Directions? – Because the biggest risk today isn’t just credit risk or liquidity risk it’s conduct risk.

Mis-selling, opaque disclosures, aggressive sales practices, dark patterns, and poor customer outcomes can erode confidence in the entire financial system. The Responsible Business Conduct (Second Amendment) Directions, 2026 signal RBI’s intent to make customer trust a governance priority—not just a business objective.

The message is simple: Good governance is no longer measured only by financial resilience, but also by how fairly customers are treated.

A question to ponder on – Is your Enterprise Risk Management framework capturing conduct risk with the same rigour as credit, liquidity and operational risk?

The attached carousel captures the key changes and what every NBFC should start preparing for.

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The post RBI NBFC Responsible Business Conduct (Second Amendment Directions, 2026) first appeared on MMJC.

The post Possession of UPSI may raise presumption -but the presumption is rebuttable first appeared on MMJC.

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The post A New Export opportunity for Indian Manufacturers first appeared on MMJC.