Can a company issue shares at differential price in a public issue? If yes, to whom and under what circumstances the shares can be issued at differential price?

Yes, a company can offer specified securities at different prices to retail individual investors or retail individual shareholders or employees entitled for reservation, anchor investor etc. A company making public issue of the securities has to comply with the provisions as laid down in SEBI (ICDR) Regulations, 2009, relating to differential pricing. In these regulations, SEBI has prescribed certain criteria for making differential pricing for different categories of investors. An issuer can offer specified securities at different prices, subject to the following: retail individual investors or retail individual shareholders or employees entitled for reservation making an application for a value of not more than two lakh rupees, can be offered specified securities at a price lower than the price at which net offer is made to other categories of applicants. However, such difference shall not be more than 10% of the price at which specified securities are offered to other categories of applicants. in case of a book built issue, the price of the specified securities offered to an anchor investor should not be lower than the price offered to other applicants; If the issuer opts for alternate method of book building, the issuer can offer specified securities to its employees at a price, lower than floor price and the difference between such price and floor price shall not be more than 10%. in case of a composite issue, the price of the specified securities offered in the public issue can be different from the price offered in rights issue and justification for such price difference should be given in the offer document.