Unlike the ruckus at the Financial Technologies Annual General Meeting in Chennai last week, it was a smooth sailing for the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) directors at the shareholders’ meeting held in Mumbai on Monday.

Jignesh Shah, Promoter of MCX, was conspicuous by his absence at the meeting, which was chaired by the Forward Markets Commission nominated independent director R.M. Pravinkumar.

Investors were concerned over the impact of the National Spot Exchange fiasco, and the related discussions dominated the proceedings for the better part of the meeting. Pravinkumar explained in great detail that the crisis in NSEL would not have any impact on the MCX, and added that the latter was a tightly regulated exchange and had risk management practices in place.

“Except for the fact that MCX and NSEL share the same parentage in Financial Technologies, there is no link between both the exchanges,” he added.

Investors also insisted that the exchange should consider distributing Rs 1,000 crore reserves in its exchange books as dividend to shareholders. Pravinkumar said the exchange would use the reserves to launch new products, once the FCRA Act is amended.

The exchange also dismissed reports that estranged Managing Director of NSEL Anjani Sinha or his close relatives have any trading position on the MCX.

>suresh.iyengar@thehindu.co.in

comment COMMENT NOW