After much dilly-dallying, the finance ministry is likely to take a call in the next few days on its proposal to make it mandatory for listed companies to have public holding of at least 25% of their total paid-up capital for all times. “In the next few days, we are most likely to decide on the issue,” finance ministry sources said here. It was way back in February this year that the ministry had come out with a discussion paper on the issue, proposing that for a company to be listed and continue to be listed, it must have a public holding of 25%. “If for any reason, the public holding reduces below 25%, the promoters, management and company may be jointly and severally be liable to bring the public holding to 25%, within three months, in the manner prescribed by Sebi, failing which appropriate enforcement action, including delisting, may be taken,” the discussion paper had said. Analysts said most of the companies forming part of the Sens*x would fail the 25 % public shareholding test.
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