Latest news with #spite
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Sebi mandates top personnel to hold shares in Demat form ahead of IPO — Key takeaways from regulator's board meeting
India's capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), approved a series of proposals on Wednesday, 18 June 2025, to ease and clarify market regulations for investors and corporates. 1. Demat mandate: Sebi approved the mandate that select shareholders, including directors and key managerial personnel, hold their shares in the company in Demat form before filing for an initial public offering (IPO). Earlier, Sebi proposed this new mandate to reduce the inefficiencies and risks associated with physical share certificates, including loss, theft, forgery, and delays in transfer and settlement. 'In spite of several regulatory mandates and facilitation mechanisms being in place, there remains a significant volume of holding of physical shares even among critical pre-IPO shareholders, such as directors, Key Managerial Personnel (KMPs), senior management, selling shareholders, and even Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs). This leaves a regulatory gap that allows a good volume of physical shares to continue existing post-listing,' reported Mint earlier, citing the Sebi consultation paper. Before the new mandate, Sebi rules required specific securities owned by the promoters to be in dematerialised form before the company filed its draft papers for an IPO. 2. ESOPs for founders: Sebi allowed startup founders to retain Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOPs) even after the company is listed post an IPO. Before this new update, founders were converted into promoters, hence making them ineligible for the ESOPs. Sebi aims to recognise the role of founders through this step, and also directed that in order to avoid a misuse of this grant, there will be a one-year cooling period between ESOP grants and IPO draft papers filing. 3. Delisting of PSUs: Sebi also approved that PSUs can now voluntarily delist themselves in line with the Indian government's disinvestment agenda. This grants the companies the ease in operations as compared to earlier. According to another Mint report, the government has been planning strategic exits as part of its broader economic agenda; hence, the new delisting norms will improve the efficiency of the disinvestment process of listed PSU firms. 4. AIF co-investments: The markets regulator also approved a new mandate which offers Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) co-investment opportunities to access high-quality deals. The new mandate will give AIF investors an opportunity to make additional investments in the same unlisted companies where the AIF has invested. 5. Simplified framework for FPIs: Sebi, on 18 June 2025, also simplified the framework for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) who are investing in Indian bonds. This move is likely to make India more attractive to long-term global capital due to the lower-risk nature of sovereign debt and the easing of registration and compliance regulations.
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Scottish economy confidence votes highlight false narrative
Scotland was one of six of the 12 UK nations and regions to record expansion last month. Its growth was driven by 'strong expansion' in the services sector, with manufacturing output falling again. The business activity index for Scotland - a seasonally adjusted measure of the month-on-month change in the combined output of the manufacturing and services sectors - rose from 47.4 in April to 50.5 in May on a seasonally adjusted basis to indicate renewed growth. This marked the first increase in output on this measure for six months, and Scotland was placed fifth out of 12 in the business activity index league table of the UK nations and regions. Meanwhile, Scotland was the only part of the UK to see growth in private sector employment in May. Sebastian Burnside, chief economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said: "Following a near-universal decline in output across the 12 monitored UK regions and nations in April, Scotland was one of six areas to experience an upturn in business activity during May.' He added: 'The Scottish labour market demonstrated resilience, with firms adding to their workforce numbers for the first time in six months. Notably, it was the only tracked area to report an increase in employment.' While we should not get carried away with Scotland's performance in the growth tracker survey, there are undoubtedly some positives. Also heartening were the latest figures on financial services foreign direct investment for Scotland published by accountancy firm EY on Monday. These showed Scotland was again second only to London as a destination for financial services foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK last year, achieving a decade-high for the number of projects won. Scotland attracted 11 financial services FDI projects in 2024, up from nine in the previous year, the EY figures revealed. This advance was achieved in spite of a sharp fall in the overall number of financial services FDI projects won by the UK last year, which makes it all the more impressive. The UK attracted 73 such projects last year, down from 108 in 2023. EY's figures show that Edinburgh, with the six financial services FDI projects it attracted last year, was the joint-top city outside London for such wins, alongside Manchester. London attracted 39 financial services FDI projects in 2024. The US continues to be the top source of financial services inward investment for Scotland, accounting for five such projects in 2024. EY noted the US has been the source of 38 financial services FDI projects for Scotland over the last decade. My column in The Herald on Wednesday on the EY figures observed: 'It was heartening indeed to hear Scotland not only managed to retain its impressive place as second only to London as a destination in the UK for financial services foreign direct investment last year but also bucked a declining trend. 'That said, it is difficult to shake the impression that not everyone in Scotland will be delighted at this news. There seem to be many who would rather it was all going horribly wrong, so they could point their fingers and declare, for political reasons, that Scotland is some kind of basket case and that it is all the SNP's fault.' Glasgow earlier this year climbed further in a closely watched league table of global financial centres. Read more The city rose by five places to 32nd spot in the latest twice-yearly Z/Yen Global Financial Centres Index, published in March. Back in September 2023, Glasgow was in 51st spot. Edinburgh's position was, at 29th in the latest rankings, unchanged from September 2024 when it climbed to its current position from 33rd but its overall score improved. Sue Dawe, EY's Scotland managing partner for financial services, said of the accountancy firm's latest FDI figures for this sector: 'We continue to see Scotland perform well in attracting financial services FDI projects. In 2024, we saw almost as many projects expanding existing operations as we did brand new projects - which is a great indication that these companies view Scotland as a viable proposition to continue investing in.' It is most encouraging to see Scotland continuing to perform well in attracting financial services inward investment in what is clearly a fiercely competitive international arena. And Ms Dawe is right to highlight as a positive the fact that many of the successes last year were around further investment by overseas players which have clearly found Scotland an attractive place to set up operations. The latest strong numbers for financial services FDI for Scotland are testament to the hard work of the sector, universities and other educational institutions, and government agency Scottish Enterprise's Scottish Development International arm. Ms Dawe noted: 'Financial services isn't simply one of Scotland's growth sectors - it's the growth sector that enables other growth sectors; so, if we get this right and continue to be the most attractive place to establish financial services operations outside London, the Scottish economy as a whole will benefit.' Long may Scotland's success on the inward investment front, in financial services and across myriad sectors, continue. Votes of confidence in Scotland from overseas companies highlight the huge extent to which some of the downbeat and often politically motivated narrative around the nation and its economy is wide of the mark.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Author Dame Pat Barker thought honours letter was income tax bill
Author Pat Barker, known for The Regeneration Trilogy, thought the letter announcing her damehood in the King's Birthday Honours was an income tax bill and that HMRC were 'really angry'. Dame Pat, 82, became a CBE in 2000 and is being given her damehood, one of the highest honours in the United Kingdom, for services to literature. The Booker Prize winner has published 16 novels, diving into anti-war themes including trauma and memory. Describing the moment she received the news of her damehood, she said: 'I picked up the envelope from the carpet and the first thing I noticed, what beautiful quality paper it was, and I thought, this is either the income tax getting really angry, or it's something from the Palace or the Cabinet Office. 'Nobody else does that kind of quality of paper. I still sort of had to read the first paragraph several times before it sank in.' Her debut novel, Union Street, was published in 1982 and won her the 1983 Best Of Young British Novelists award. It was later made into the film, Stanley And Iris, starring Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro. She added: 'One of the things that, in spite of everything, I like about the British honour system is the way it records people who do very low profile, working for free, long hours, weeks, months, years, for something that they genuinely believe in and usually unpaid, and for the benefit of other people, and they are the bedrock of the honour system, and they actually are the reason why it is so respected, and knights and dames are just cherries on the top of that cake. 'I am happy to be a cherry.' The author is known for exploring the effects of war in her novels, attributing her grandfather and stepfather as inspiration for some of her most popular books. She said: 'I was very much a war baby. My Victory in Europe Day was my second birthday, and I thought the street parties were for me, as any two year old would. 'I think in my family, there were people who bore the very visible mental and physical injuries of war. 'My stepfather, for example, was in the trenches at 15, my grandfather had a bayonet wound, and he used to get stripped off at the kitchen sink, and the bayonet wound was terrible, very obvious, and he never talked about it. So you've got the two things there that are essential for writers, a story that is obviously present, but which isn't being told. 'The last thing any writer needs is a completed story. What you need as a writer is a mystery. And I had that.' She began writing the Regeneration trilogy in 1991 with the first book following English Lieutenant Billy Prior as he is being treated for shellshock. The book was adapted into a film in 1997 which starred The Two Popes actor Jonathan Pryce and Maurice's James Wilby. In 1993, Dame Pat published the second book in the trilogy, The Eye In The Door, which follows William Rivers, the psychiatrist treating Prior at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh. She was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize that same year and in 1995 won the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Ghost Road, the third book in the trilogy, which recounts the final months of the war from alternating perspectives of Billy, as he is about to rejoin the war, and William, who grapples with the work he has done to help injured men at the hospital. More recently, the novelist was shortlisted for The Women's Prize For Fiction in 2019 for her book, The Silence Of The Girls, part of The Woman Of Troy trilogy, which recounts the lives of women living through the Trojan War. It is followed by The Women Of Troy (2021) and The Voyage Home (2024), and sees the author shift her storytelling both in its genre, from historical fiction to myth, and characters, writing from the perspective of women instead of men. She said: 'I was wanting to deal with the experience of women, and specifically with rape as a weapon of war, because that is really what the Trojan trilogy, as it is at the moment, is about and that is also a very up to date, modern area of political and legal debate, making rape a war crime similar and equal to other war crimes. 'I think that is a battle that is still being fought for women in lots of ways. And that shadows the subsequent lives of women, but also of their children, who are very often the product of rape, and that is difficult for the woman and the child and the community that the woman comes from. 'So it seems as if it's thousands of years ago but actually myth isn't thousands of years ago. Myth is applicable to our lives today, and that's always what I want to bring out.' Dame Pat was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, Cleveland, and raised mainly by her grandparents. She began her writing career in her late 30s after studying international history at the London School of Economics and taught history and politics at colleges of further education until 1982.
ITV News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
Author Dame Pat Barker thought honours letter was income tax bill
Author Pat Barker, known for The Regeneration Trilogy, thought the letter announcing her damehood in the King's Birthday Honours was an income tax bill and that HMRC were 'really angry'. Dame Pat, 82, became a CBE in 2000 and is being given her damehood, one of the highest honours in the United Kingdom, for services to literature. The Booker Prize winner has published 16 novels, diving into anti-war themes including trauma and memory. Describing the moment she received the news of her damehood, she said: 'I picked up the envelope from the carpet and the first thing I noticed, what beautiful quality paper it was, and I thought, this is either the income tax getting really angry, or it's something from the Palace or the Cabinet Office. 'Nobody else does that kind of quality of paper. I still sort of had to read the first paragraph several times before it sank in.' Her debut novel, Union Street, was published in 1982 and won her the 1983 Best Of Young British Novelists award. It was later made into the film, Stanley And Iris, starring Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro. She added: 'One of the things that, in spite of everything, I like about the British honour system is the way it records people who do very low profile, working for free, long hours, weeks, months, years, for something that they genuinely believe in and usually unpaid, and for the benefit of other people, and they are the bedrock of the honour system, and they actually are the reason why it is so respected, and knights and dames are just cherries on the top of that cake. 'I am happy to be a cherry.' The author is known for exploring the effects of war in her novels, attributing her grandfather and stepfather as inspiration for some of her most popular books. She said: 'I was very much a war baby. My Victory in Europe Day was my second birthday, and I thought the street parties were for me, as any two year old would. 'I think in my family, there were people who bore the very visible mental and physical injuries of war. 'My stepfather, for example, was in the trenches at 15, my grandfather had a bayonet wound, and he used to get stripped off at the kitchen sink, and the bayonet wound was terrible, very obvious, and he never talked about it. So you've got the two things there that are essential for writers, a story that is obviously present, but which isn't being told. 'The last thing any writer needs is a completed story. What you need as a writer is a mystery. And I had that.' She began writing the Regeneration trilogy in 1991 with the first book following English Lieutenant Billy Prior as he is being treated for shellshock. The book was adapted into a film in 1997 which starred The Two Popes actor Jonathan Pryce and Maurice's James Wilby. In 1993, Dame Pat published the second book in the trilogy, The Eye In The Door, which follows William Rivers, the psychiatrist treating Prior at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh. She was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize that same year and in 1995 won the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Ghost Road, the third book in the trilogy, which recounts the final months of the war from alternating perspectives of Billy, as he is about to rejoin the war, and William, who grapples with the work he has done to help injured men at the hospital. More recently, the novelist was shortlisted for The Women's Prize For Fiction in 2019 for her book, The Silence Of The Girls, part of The Woman Of Troy trilogy, which recounts the lives of women living through the Trojan War. It is followed by The Women Of Troy (2021) and The Voyage Home (2024), and sees the author shift her storytelling both in its genre, from historical fiction to myth, and characters, writing from the perspective of women instead of men. She said: 'I was wanting to deal with the experience of women, and specifically with rape as a weapon of war, because that is really what the Trojan trilogy, as it is at the moment, is about and that is also a very up to date, modern area of political and legal debate, making rape a war crime similar and equal to other war crimes. 'I think that is a battle that is still being fought for women in lots of ways. And that shadows the subsequent lives of women, but also of their children, who are very often the product of rape, and that is difficult for the woman and the child and the community that the woman comes from. 'So it seems as if it's thousands of years ago but actually myth isn't thousands of years ago. Myth is applicable to our lives today, and that's always what I want to bring out.' Dame Pat was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, Cleveland, and raised mainly by her grandparents. She began her writing career in her late 30s after studying international history at the London School of Economics and taught history and politics at colleges of further education until 1982.
New Paper
13-06-2025
- Sport
- New Paper
June 14 South Africa (Scottsville) form analysis
Race 1 (1,200m) (4) CRace 1 (1,200m)ELESTIAL DIAMOND was friendless in the market on debut but finished close-up in spite of racing green over course and distance. (13) TULIP FIELDS found good market support when making her debut over 1,400m on the Poly. She raced green and although down in trip and on turf, she has a strong chance. (6) DANCEWITHDIAMONDS comes from a very much in-form stable. Watch in the betting. (2) WATER HYACINTH found market support last time and was not far back. She can feature. Race 2 (1,200m) (10) GOTTA GO EDDIE has shown up well in both starts and ran second over course and distance on debut. (3) BOARDWALK BREEZE has not been far back in two starts to date. He should be better for the experience and Muzi Yeni stays with the ride. (11) FRENCH WAR LORD raced green in a promising debut and is sure to improve on that effort. (6) THE CENTURION was not far back in his Kenilworth debut in soft ground. He started at long odds but may be worth watching. Race 3 (1,200m) (2) THAT'LL B THE DAY was narrowly beaten on this course at just his second outing. That experience will count in his favour. (6) LIGHT THE FIRE was green in a promising debut and should come on with the outing. The regally-bred (12) GIMME RULES makes his debut and is a full brother to Group 1 performers. (11) NEXT OF KIN comes from a top stable and will be worth watching in the betting. Race 4 (1,400m) (1) STAR IN MOTION steps up in trip but has been narrowly beaten at his last two on the Poly. The extra should suit and he can go one better. (3) WORLD OF ROYALTY has put in two smart efforts over shorter in soft ground and was a beaten favourite last time. The trip will suit and he should put in a big showing. (4) CAPTAINSHIP started at long odds when going the trip for the first time from the widest draw at Greyville. He has Richard Fourie in the irons. (7) VENCEDOR has come good of late and stays the trip well. He is another to consider. Race 5 (1,000m) (5) BLUE HOLLY is back over what looks to be her preferred trip. This is her third run in KZN and should be at her peak. (3) MIA'S ATHENA has had her problems but has her third run back after a lengthy break. She was close-up last start has a light weight. She can give apprentice Savanna Valjalo her first winner. (6) VISION TO ACHIEVE has been in mustard form over course and distance. She has a handy weight and can do it again. (4) CONVOCATION was possibly outclassed in the SA Fillies Sprint last time after showing good form to weaker prior to that. She may prefer it a touch further. Race 6 (2,400m) (6) MY SOUL MATE was runner-up in a strong Woolavington 2000 field. She will be a big runner. (9) WORLD OF ALICE was narrowly beaten in the Group 2 SA Oaks by star filly Fiery Pegasus. She was a little disappointing last time but rates a strong chance in this line-up. (3) GIVE ME EVERYTHING steps up to this trip for the first time. She looks held by My Soul Mate on their last meeting but can improve. (4) KNOCKOUT has not been far back at recent outings. She steps up in trip and is worth a shot. Race 7 (2,400m) (6) HOLDING THUMBS stays the distance well and looks the part. (8) FUTURE SWING was a close-up second to (5) FIELD MARSHAL last time. He is 5.5kg better off Field Marshal at the weights, so should be able to turn the tables. (2) CAPE EAGLE goes well over course and distance and had no luck in running in the WSB 1900. He is seldom out of the money. Race 8 (1,400m) (2) ROSH KEDESH is down in class and has shown up well in two KZN starts. He should be primed for this. (1) SERPENTINE FIRE is 1.5kg better off with Honor Of Kings for a length beating. There should be very little in it this time around with Serpentine Fire having the better draw this time around. (10) HONOR OF KINGS was not far back when starting favourite last run. The extra furlong will suit and he can make amends. (13) RED MOUNTAIN is never far back and although drawn wide, he has a 4kg claimer aboard and the blinkers are back on.
