A Securities and Exchange Board of India proposal to tighten the rules for purchase of shares and bonds in Indian companies through the participatory note route took the breath away of the Indian stock market and it suffered its biggest fall in history.

So what are these participatory notes? And why do they have this huge impact on the Indian securities markets?

P-Notes

Participatory Notes -- or P-Notes or PNs -- are instruments issued by registered foreign institutional investors to overseas investors, who wish to invest in the Indian stock markets without registering themselves with the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Financial instruments used by hedge funds that are not registered with Sebi to invest in Indian securities. Indian-based brokerages to buy India-based securities / stocks and then issue participatory notes to foreign investors. Any dividends or capital gains collected from the underlying securities go back to the investors.

Why P-Notes?

Since international access to the Indian capital market is limited to FIIs. The market has found a way to circumvent this by creating the device called participatory notes, which are said to account for half the $80 billion that stands to the credit of FIIs. Investing through P-Notes is very simple and hence very popular.

What are hedge funds?

Hedge funds, which invest through participatory notes, borrow money cheaply from Western markets and invest these funds into stocks in emerging markets. This gives them double benefit: a chance to make a killing in a stock market where stocks are on the rise; and a chance to make the most of the rising value of the local currency.

Who gets P-Notes?

P-Notes are issued to the real investors on the basis of stocks purchased by the FII. The registered FII looks after all the transactions, which appear as proprietary trades in its books. It is not obligatory for the FIIs to disclose their client details to the Sebi, unless asked specifically.

What is an FII?

An FII, or a foreign institutional investor, is an entity established to make investments in India.

However, these FIIs need to get registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Entities or funds that are eligible to get registered as FII include pension funds; mutual funds; insurance companies / reinsurance companies; investment trusts; banks; international or multilateral organisation or an agency thereof or a foreign government agency or a foreign central bank; university funds; endowments (serving broader social objectives); foundations (serving broader social objectives); and charitable trusts / charitable societies.

The following entities proposing to invest on behalf of broad based funds, are also eligible to be registered as FIIs:

• Asset Management Companies
• Investment Manager/Advisor
• Institutional Portfolio Managers
• Trustees

How does Sebi regulate FIIs?

FIIs who issue/renew/cancel/redeem P-Notes, are required to report on a monthly basis. The report should reach the Sebi by the 7th day of the following month.

The FII merely investing/subscribing in/to the Participatory Notes -- or any such type of instruments/securities -- with underlying Indian market securities are required to report on quarterly basis (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep and Oct-Dec).

FIIs who do not issue PNs but have trades/holds Indian securities during the reporting quarter (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep and Oct-Dec) require to submit 'Nil' undertaking on a quarterly basis.

FIIs who do not issue PNs and do not have trades/ holdings in Indian securities during the reporting quarter. (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep and Oct-Dec): No reports required for that reporting quarter.

Who can invest in P-Notes?

a) Any entity incorporated in a jurisdiction that requires filing of constitutional and/or other documents with a registrar of companies or comparable regulatory agency or body under the applicable companies legislation in that jurisdiction;

b) Any entity that is regulated, authorised or supervised by a central bank, such as the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Monetary Authority of Singapore or any other similar body provided that the entity must not only be authorised but also be regulated by the aforesaid regulatory bodies;

c) Any entity that is regulated, authorised or supervised by a securities or futures commission, such as the Financial Services Authority (UK), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Futures Commission (Hong Kong or Taiwan), Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Australia) or other securities or futures authority or commission in any country , state or territory;

d) Any entity that is a member of securities or futures exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange (Sub-account), London Stock Exchange (UK), Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan), NASD (Sub-account) or other similar self-regulatory securities or futures authority or commission within any country, state or territory provided that the aforesaid organizations which are in the nature of self regulatory organizations are ultimately accountable to the respective securities / financial market regulators.

e) Any individual or entity (such as fund, trust, collective investment scheme, Investment Company or limited partnership) whose investment advisory function is managed by an entity satisfying the criteria of (a), (b), (c) or (d) above.

Sebi not happy

However, Indian regulators are not very happy about participatory notes because they have no way to know who owns the underlying securities. Regulators fear that hedge funds acting through participatory notes will cause economic volatility in India's exchanges.

Hedge funds were largely blamed for the sudden sharp falls in indices. Unlike FIIs, hedge funds are not directly registered with Sebi, but they can operate through sub-accounts with FIIs. These funds are also said to operate through the issuance of participatory notes.

30% FII money in stocks thru P-Notes

According to one estimate, more than 30 per cent of foreign institutional money coming into India is from hedge funds. This has led Sebi to keep a close watch on FII transactions, and especially hedge funds.

Hedge funds, which thrive on arbitrage opportunities, rarely hold a stock for a long time.

With a view to monitoring investments through participatory notes, Sebi had decided that FIIs must report details of these instruments along with the names of their holders.

Sebi Chairman M Damodaran has said that the proposals were against PNs but not against FIIs. The procedures for registering FIIs were in fact being simplified, he said.

Sebi has also proposed a ban on all PN issuances by sub-accounts of FIIs with immediate effect. They also will be required to wind up the current position over 18 months, during which period the capital markets regulator will review the position from time to time.

Sebi chairman M Damodaran, in a recent interview Business Standard, said that the amount of foreign investment coming in through participatory notes keeps changing and is somewhere between 25-30 per cent. "Recent indications are that it has gone up a little but again after the sub-prime crisis, there have been some exits. But it's a fairly significant percentage, it's not something you can ignore."

When asked if he was comfortable with almost one-fourth of the  market being held by P-Notes, he said that he wasn't 'entirely uncomfortable.'