Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) has decided to postpone its decision for divesting 24 per cent stake in the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) to May 10, as bidders did not submit binding bids.

FTIL said in a statement issued after the board meeting here on Friday that with MCX releasing executive summary of the special audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), some bidders requested for the full report and further information about MCX. FTIL’s merchant bankers have sent the request to MCX.

The statement noted that the May 10 meeting would review the progress on the divestment of stake.

PwC carried out an audit report on MCX on instructions given by the commodity market regulator.

Several well known local and global investors have submitted non-binding offers to the FTIL to buy MCX stake. Reliance Capital has emerged the highest bidder with an offer of Rs 750 a share.

After MCX put the summary of the PwC report in the public domain, it was perceived the bids would be delayed. MCX's shares went up 1.9 per cent on Friday to close at Rs 543.70 apiece on the BSE after falling nearly eight per cent on Thursday. FTIL's stock fell 4.77 per cent to close at Rs 300.70 on Friday.

FTIL, which has been the promoter and the anchor investor of MCX, has to cut its stake in MCX from 26 per cent to two per cent after the Forward Markets Commission declared it not fit-and-proper to run the exchange.

In the aftermath of the Rs 5,574-crore payment crisis at the National Spot Exchange (NSEL), a subsidiary of FTIL, the commodity market regulator had commissioned PwC to carry out a special audit of MCX since its inception. The audit firm had submitted an interim report a couple of months ago. On April 21, it submitted its final report, a summary of which was made public early this week.

The report had said there were many lacunae in the surveillance mechanism and technology platform. FTIL had termed the report one-sided, saying it would take legal action against the firm on this. The issue is understood to have been discussed in Friday's FTIL board meeting. However, the company statement is silent on the issue.

It even said related-party transactions between MCX and its anchor investor FTIL were not at arm's length. Also the technology contract with FTIL was favouring the later despite MCX was bound for 33 years for getting the technology services from FTIL. (Business Standard)