Religare open offer in HC; Gaekwad bid hits Sebi wall

Investor asks Delhi HC to stop Burmans' offer; Sebi returns Gaekwad's proposal

- Anirudh Laskar & Neha Joshi

The high-profile battle for control of Religare Enterprises Ltd took a fresh twist on Tuesday with a Bangkok-based investor seeking the Delhi High Court's intervention to halt the Burman family's open offer to acquire an additional 26% stake in the financial services conglomerate.

Sapna Govind Rao, who claims to own 500 shares in Religare, urged the court to instead consider a ₹5,000-crore competing open offer by Florida-based businessman Digvijay "Danny" Gaekwad. Mint has reviewed a copy of Rao's urgent application before the court.

Just a few hours after Rao filed the court application, Religare revealed to the stock exchanges that the Securities and Exchange Board of India had returned Gaekwad's proposal since it did not conform to the regulator's exemption application rules under India's takeover code.

The Vadodara-born Gaekwad had on Sunday requested Sebi to allow his competing offer aimed at acquiring a 55% stake in Religare at ₹275 per share. That's higher than the ₹235 per share open offer made by the Burmans, who own about 25.18% of Religare. The company's shares fell nearly 3.7% on BSE to end Tuesday at ₹243.05 apiece, even as the benchmark Sensex gained 0.71%.