India will not mandate secondary listing for domestic firms that wish to raise money from foreign stock exchanges, Reuters reported on Thursday. The news comes just weeks after it was reported that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) was considering issuing guidelines that would force Indian companies looking to go public overseas to also list themselves on an Indian stock exchange. Currently, Indian companies cannot raise money in international markets unless they get listed first on an Indian stock exchange. For instance, MakeMyTrip bypassed this requirement by incorporating itself in Mauritius so it could list itself on US-based Nasdaq. Last month, the Parliament passed the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2020 allowing for the removal of this mandate. The decision to make this change had been announced earlier by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, as part of improving ease of doing business in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2020 allows the central government to allow certain classes of public companies to list securities in foreign jurisdictions, as long they these countries have strong anti-money laundering, KYC norms and adhere to regulations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Companies hailed the bill. Kunal Bahl, CEO of Snapdeal, reacting on Twitter after the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, said the move would permit "unencumbered direct listing [Indian] companies on foreign stock exchanges" which would allow them to become "global champions". Before the bill was passed, Rajan Anandan, managing director of Sequoia Capital India, had told MediaNama the…
