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SEBI has directed AIFs with a corpus of Rs. 500 crore or more to dematerialise all issued units latest by October 31, 2023. Further, these AIFs will have to issue units only in dematerialised form from November 1, 2023 onwards.
Likewise, AIFs with less than Rs. 500 crore corpus will have to dematerialise issued units latest by April 30, 2024 and issue only dematerialised units from May 1, 2024 onwards.
“The requirement of dematerialisation of units of AIFs, shall not be applicable for schemes whose tenure (excluding permissible extensions in tenure) ends on or before April 30, 2024.”, explained SEBI in a circular.
In another circular, SEBI issued guidelines to enchance liquidity of AIFs during its winding up process. According to SEBI, AIFs will not have to obtain consent of 75% of the total investors based on their assets to create a new liquidation scheme or for in-specie distribution (i.e. distribution of units instead of cash).
Overall, the move will give easy exit option to investors without affecting their main investment portfolio.
In addition, AIFs will have to arrange a bid to liquidate at least 25% of the value of illiquid investments.
Directing an immediate implementation of these regulations, SEBI clarified, “If the AIF fails to obtain requisite investor consent for launch of liquidation scheme or in-specie distribution of unliquidated investments, then the unliquidated investments shall be mandatorily distributed to investors in-specie, without requirement of obtaining consent of 75% of investors by value of their investment in the scheme of the AIF.”
Further, the regulator has asked AIFs to take standard valuation approach. Under these norms, AIFs will have to inform investors about reasons behind valuation deviation at each asset class, where there is a deviation of more than 20% between two consecutive valuations or a deviation of more than 33% in a financial year. Additionally, it elucidated other disclosure requirements and criteria for appointing independent valuer.
“The provisions of this circular shall come into force with effect from November 1, 2023”, stated SEBI.