Zee Business questions Zomato’s move to leave out retail investors from its investor call; Managing Editor Anil Singhvi call out bias, demands this

Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi has once again raised the voice for retail investors. This time in case of Zomato, where the company chose to keep retail investors out from its investors’ call. The company recently announced its plans to acquire Blinkit

Investor call was organised on 25 June, Saturday

Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi has once again raised the voice for retail investors. This time in case of Zomato, where the company chose to keep retail investors out from its investors’ call. The company recently announced its plans to acquire Blinkit.

The investor call was organised on 25 June, Saturday.

He said that usual practice for companies such as Zomato is that they engage with fund managers, analysts who track their stocks, to apprise them of their plans and decisions while ignoring the retail investors.

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He questioned the delays made by companies in informing retail investors and also the information not being shared with them in entirety.

He said that it is still okay that the media organizations are not allowed during the analyst calls as they may pose some uncomfortable questions with the companies. It is also understandable that it will be impossible for the companies to answer questions of all the investors. But the least that companies must do is to allow retail investors to attend these investor calls.

It should be open for all the investors, be it retail or institutional, Singhvi said.

Companies must share all the information even with the retail investors and let them draw their conclusions if answering questions of all of them is unfeasible, the Market Guru said.

He also questioned their stand to not allow media organizations to attend the calls. He asked what companies fear or what they want to hide when they don’t allow the media.

He condemned this behavior of the companies not treating retail investor on par with the institutional investors.

The Managing Editor said that investor with even one share has the same rights as the fun manager with lakhs of shares.

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The food delivery app announced its plans of acquiring Blinkit.

Investors must know that the co-founders of Zomato and Blinkit are relatives. Akriti Chopra is the Co-founder of Zomato. She is the wife of Blinkit Co-founder Albinder Dhindsa.

Singhvi said that he was sure that SEBI has knowledge about this practice and should take some action on this issue.

The Managing Editor has made an appeal to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to ensure that there is no bias between the retail investors and institutional investors at the time when companies are about to make a big announcement.

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रिटेल निवेशकों के हक के लिए अनिल सिंघवी ने फिर उठाई आवाज़

छोटे निवेशकों के साथ भेदभाव क्यूँ @zomato के इन्वेस्टर कॉल में क्या हुआ?

सभी को मिले कॉनकॉल की जानकारी एक साथ

क्या है #SEBI से @AnilSinghvi_की मांग? @SEBI_India @FinMinIndia @BSEIndia @NSEIndia @nsitharaman pic.twitter.com/CyKILMVhRX

— Zee Business (@ZeeBusiness) June 27, 2022

Zomato has also done something new, which has not been done by any other company. Zee Business’ Senior Research Analyst Varun Dubey explains.

If a company does not want anybody to come in the investor call, it directly tell the investor. But, you cannot do this with retail investors. What it did was that it sent a form where the participant is required to write his name, his organization’s name and his official email id. Only after doing this a link will come to the investor through which the investor can access the conference call.

A retail investor may not be associated with any organization so even if his personal email id is given by him, he could not access the call.

They also introduced another criteria where the analyst were required to mention if they were a buy side analyst or a sell side analyst.

The Market Guru has invited Zomato Management to come on Zee Business and explain their position.

Zomato shares were trading at Rs 61.25 on the NSE on Tuesday at 2:18 pm and were down nearly 7 per cent from the Monday closing price.

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