Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday extended the validity of its observations on all public and rights issues by six months.

It also eased fast-track rights issues and reduced the threshold for minimum subscription requirements for a rights issue from the existing 90% to 75% of the offer size.

The regulator said the validity of its observations on all public and rights issues would be extended from the date of expiry for issuers whose observation has expired or will expire between March 1 and September 30. On rights issues, it said the eligibility requirement of an average market capitalisation of public shareholding of Rs 250 crore has been reduced to Rs 100 crore.

The move is aimed at expanding the universe of listed entities for the purpose of fast-track rights issuances, Sebi said.

It also halved the time requirement on listing of equity shares of the issuer to 18 months. “The condition related to no audit qualifications on issuer’s audited accounts has been replaced with the requirement to disclose the impact of audit qualifications on issuer’s financials,” Sebi said in a circular.

It also relaxed certain other eligibility conditions, such as ongoing action initiated by it against the issuer or promoter.

It also reduced the threshold for not filing the draft letter of offer for listed companies raising funds up to Rs 25 crore in a rights issue from the existing threshold of Rs 10 crore.

Sebi has also given flexibility on issue size to issuers whose offer document is pending the receipt of the regulator’s observations.

They would be able to increase or decrease the fresh issue size by up to 50%, instead of the present limit of 20% without requiring to file a fresh draft offer document.

It would be applicable for all offer documents pending receipt of Sebi observations up to December 31, 2020.