Every market-moving event reaches the public as a regulatory disclosure first. These explainers cover the disclosures behind the headlines — what each one is, who files it, on what deadline, and how to read it. Written and maintained by Gunpowder Editorial; the same disclosures are scored daily by our analysis pipeline.
A DRHP — Draft Red Herring Prospectus — is the first public document in an Indian IPO. The company files it with SEBI through its merchant bankers, disclosing the business, financials, risk factors, and planned use of proceeds, but not the price band or issue dates. SEBI reviews it; public comments run 21 days from the filing's public announcement.
An open offer is a mandatory bid an acquirer must make to a listed Indian company's public shareholders after crossing SEBI's takeover thresholds — 25% of voting rights, or acquiring control. Under the SAST Regulations the offer must cover at least 26% of the company's shares, giving public investors an exit at a regulated price.
A scheme of arrangement is the tribunal-supervised route for mergers, demergers, and restructurings in India. The company proposes the scheme under Sections 230–232 of the Companies Act, shareholders and creditors vote — approval needs a majority in number holding 75% in value — and the NCLT sanctions it, binding every shareholder and creditor.
The NCLT — National Company Law Tribunal — is India's specialist tribunal for company law and corporate insolvency. It admits and supervises insolvency cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, approves mergers and schemes of arrangement, and hears shareholder disputes. For a listed company, an NCLT admission order is often the most material filing it will ever make.
SAST and PIT are SEBI's two ownership-disclosure regimes. SAST — Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers — tracks large stake build-ups: crossing 5%, then every 2% move. PIT — Prohibition of Insider Trading — tracks trades by promoters, directors, and designated persons above ₹10 lakh a quarter. Both produce public filings revealing who is buying or selling.
Listed Indian companies must announce board meetings twice: an intimation before the meeting under SEBI LODR Regulation 29, and an outcome within 30 minutes of its conclusion under Regulations 30 and 33. The intimation tells the market what the board will consider — results, dividends, fundraising — and the outcome discloses what it actually decided.
Regulation 30 of SEBI's LODR Regulations is India's material-events disclosure rule — the reason listed companies announce acquisitions, board changes, fraud, and regulatory actions to the exchanges. Schedule III lists events that are always material; the 2023 amendment added hard timelines, requiring disclosure within 30 minutes to 24 hours depending on the trigger.
Corporate governance filings are the disclosures that show who runs an Indian listed company and how: board and committee changes, director appointments and resignations, quarterly governance reports, shareholding patterns, related-party disclosures, and meeting voting results. Most flow from SEBI's LODR Regulations, and together they form the paper trail of boardroom power.
An NCD — non-convertible debenture — is a fixed-income bond issued by an Indian company that cannot be converted into equity. Companies raise debt through public NCD issues or private placements under SEBI's NCS Regulations, 2021. Listed NCDs produce a steady stream of exchange filings: interest-payment intimations, record dates, and credit-rating updates.
The record date is when an Indian company checks its shareholder register to decide who receives a dividend, bonus, or split; the ex-date is the first trading day the stock trades without that entitlement. Under India's T+1 settlement the two now fall on the same day — buy before the ex-date or the corporate action passes you by.