SEBI charged GHCL with fraud and bars promoters

Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has charged Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd (GHCL) with fraud, saying its top management gave false data on promoter holding. The capital markets regulator has barred the top executives from dealing in securities. “I hereby, by way of ad interim, ex-parte order, direct GHCL, its promoter entities, Sanjay Dalmia, chairman, Ravi Shanker Jalan, managing director, Bhuwneshwar Mishra, company secretary of GHCL not to buy, sell or deal in the securities market until further orders,” Sebi whole-time member KM Abraham said in his 10-page order.

Sebi has found stark variance in the disclosures of promoters holding across the four quarters in the year 2008. In March 2009, the company reported a promoter holding of 18.2 per cent, from 38.3 per cent in December 2008. But the company did not report this fall, as is required by the regulator. “This shows that the promoters have tried to reconcile their wrong holdings reported by them in last four quarters by giving the supposedly correct holding for the March 2009 quarter,” the order said.
Asked about the discrepancy, a GHCL spokesperson said, “We are studying the Sebi order and will reply to Sebi. We cannot comment as the matter is sub-judice.” Among other things, Sebi discovered that GHCL had disclosed that promoters held 10,200,110 shares or 10 per cent of the company’s equity through Carissa Holdings for the quarter ended December 2008, which was approximately six times the actual holdings. By February 16, 2009, the company said Carissa Holdings’ shareholding was 16,06,752 shares or 1.6 per cent of GHCL’s equity.

Is it another Satyam ????