Unlisted shares: Check Buying and Selling Process of Delisted Shares (2024)

FAQs

What is the procedure for selling unlisted shares? ›

The Selling Procedure

The investor must send the unlisted shares they wish to sell, together with the corresponding amounts, to the DEMAT account of the purchasers or broker. Payment is made on the same day the dealer receives the unlisted shares in his DEMAT Account.

Though delisting does not affect your ownership, shares may not hold any value post-delisting. Thus, if any of the stocks that you own get delisted, it is better to sell your shares. You can either exit the market or sell it to the company when it announces buyback.

The corporation must honour the delisting price. If the firm has been delisted for more than a year, the shareholder might approach the company and negotiate a private sale of the shares to the promoters. This will be an off-market transaction, with the price agreed upon by the seller and buyer.

If an investor owns a stock, but that stock gets delisted, they still own the stock, but its value is likely to decline significantly. Mandatory delisting is usually viewed as a sign of financial distress and can sometimes signal a forthcoming bankruptcy, which tends to decimate a stock's value.

Long-Term Capital Gain Tax: If an investor sells an unlisted stock that has been held for more than 24 months or two years, any gain from the sale is categorised as a Long-Term Capital Gain (LTCG). LTCG earned from unlisted stocks is taxed at 20% with indexation.

This means it's removed from a public exchange. This doesn't automatically mean that the stock in question is worth nothing, and that you can't still trade it. But delisted stocks tend to see their value drop, and in many cases, quickly. And trading them can become complicated.

In Case of Voluntary Delisting

Shareholders receive an official letter and a bidding form, with the option to reject the acquirer's offer. Successful delisting requires the purchaser to buy back the necessary shares within a specified period.

The delisting of shares results in the impossible selling of shares until the company goes through the exit route. It is effectively irrecoverable and is a loss to the taxpayer. Once the company goes through liquidation or is referred to NCLT under IBC, NCLT declares the company to drop the shares and claim the loss.

There are many players in the market, who provide trading facility in unlisted shares through off-market transfers. Here, the sale does not take place in the stock exchange, but you transfer the shares through a delivery instruction slip (DIS) in the offline mode.

How to transfer delisted shares online? ›

While unlisted shares are those which are not listed on the stock exchanges yet, delisted shares are those which were once listed but dropped out from the listed shares category due to certain reasons. You can trade and invest in unlisted shares on OTC markets, but you cannot invest or trade any delisted shares.

If you still hold shares after they are delisted, you can sell them—just not on the exchange on which they traded before. Stock exchanges are very advantageous for buying and selling shares. When they delist and trade over the counter (OTC), selling shares and getting a reasonable price for them becomes much harder.

How Long Does a Stock Delisting Take? If a company fails to meet the minimum listing requirements, they can be delisted from the exchange it trades on. Companies have 10 days on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to respond to a notification letter from the exchange.

The security is under a long-term cease trading order. If the security cannot be sold in the market, it may be possible to dispose of the worthless security by gifting it to another person who can be related or unrelated to you. You will need to ensure that the person is not your spouse or minor child.

So you will have to consult the entities dealing in unlisted shares to sell your shares. If these are not being traded in the unlisted market as well, there is no option but to hold them till the shares are listed again, if at all, or are traded in the offline market.

Long-Term Capital Gain - In unlisted shares, the taxation for long-term capital gains (LTCG) is calculated if the holding period is more than 24 months. The tax rate for LTCG is 20% with indexation benefits as compared to listed shares that have a LTCG holding period of more than 12 months.