Sebi ban on Biyani, others to have no impact on deal with Reliance: Future

Future Retail has said that the oneyear ban imposed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Chairperson Kishore Biyani (pictured) and some other promoters, from accessing the securities market, will have “no impact” on the ~24,713-crore deal with Reliance Industries.

Further, Biyani, some other promoters, and Future Corporate Resources (FCRPL) plan to appeal against the order.

“The ... Order will have no impact on the ongoing Scheme of Arrangement of the company. We understand that the relevant parties propose to challenge this Order in exercise of their statutory right to appeal,” Future Retail (FRL) said in a late-night regulatory filing on Wednesday.

In a separate statement, FCRPL said the Sebi order “has taken care to exclude dealings in securities under any impending Scheme of Arrangement”.

“Therefore, Sebi will not pose a hurdle to the ongoing Scheme of Arrangement with the Reliance Group,” it said.

FCRPL said the Sebi order was “untenable since it treats a well-anticipated and publicly wellknown impending reorganisation of the home furnishing businesses that the Future Group effected in 2017 to be unpublished information”. “The Order will be challenged in exercise of the statutory right to appeal,” it added.

On Wednesday, Sebi had barred Biyani and certain other promoters of Future Retail from the securities market for one year for indulging in insider trading in the shares of the company.

In addition, the regulator has imposed a fine of ~1 crore each on Kishore Biyani, Anil Biyani and FCRPL. Besides, they have been asked to disgorge ~17.78 crore for the wrongful gains made by them.

The development comes at a time when Future Group is locked in a bitter legal battle with e-commerce giant Amazon over the former’s ~24,713-crore deal with RIL.

In August last year, Future Group had entered into a deal with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s RIL to sell its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units.