Comment on the following: A company cannot offer its shares at different prices to different sets of people in a particular public issue.

The statement is false. Regulation 29 of SEBI (Issue of capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009 provides that 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. In case the issuer opts for the alternate method of book building, the issuer may offer specified securities to its employees at a price lower than the floor price. However, the difference between the floor price and the price at which specified securities are offered to employees shall not be more than ten per cent of the floor price.