A pretty curious case, this… Pyramid Saimira Theatre said it received a letter from SEBI asking its chairman PS Saminathan to make an open offer to buy 20% in the company at Rs.250/share.

Some time later, the company called a press conference to announce that the letter was a forgery. SEBI also confirmed that they had not issued any such letter to the company. The letter was delivered to the company by Blue Dart, whereas SEBI normally faxes such letters instead of sending them by courier. Blue Dart, however, has confirmed in writing that it had received instructions from SEBI to deliver it on Monday morning.

The reason for this letter ? Apparently, the open offer was triggered due to violation of the creeping acquisition limit of 5% per year by the promoter. In June ‘08, he bought a 4.89% stake in the company at Rs.250/share, and then acquired an additional 2.45% between November 19 and December 5. This took his total purchases for the year to over 7%, and according to SEBI rules, the open offer price should not be less than the price at which the promoter had made acquisitions during the preceding 26 weeks.

Chairman PS Saminathan said he held a 24% stake and was keen to acquire another 22% from the other promoter, Nirmal Kotecha.

Of course, as was to be expected, the stock shot up over 10% and even hit the circuit and it would be interesting to see who bought and sold these shares in these couple of days. A surge in stock price would obviously allow someone to offload all / part of their holding, and once the prices came down on news that the letter was forged, someone else could pickup those shares at a much lower price. Could that someone be Kotecha ?

 Some more updates:

Kotecha sold 6% of Pyramid on fake letter bounce

 IT Dept attaches Pyramid Saimira’s bank accounts

I knew Kotecha was selling. I want to know who’s buying

 

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