The language of Indian corporate announcements

A share buyback is when a company repurchases its own shares from existing shareholders, reducing the number of shares outstanding. In India, buybacks are governed by SEBI's Buy-Back of Securities Regulations and most now happen through the tender-offer route.

A bonus issue is a free allotment of additional shares to existing shareholders in a fixed ratio (for example 1:1 — one new share for every share held), made by capitalising the company's accumulated reserves. It increases the share count without changing the value of the business.

A stock split divides each existing share into multiple shares by reducing the face value — for example, one ₹10 face-value share splitting into ten ₹1 shares. The share count rises and the price falls proportionately; the value of your holding is unchanged.

A dividend is a cash distribution of profits to shareholders, declared as an amount per share (often expressed as a percentage of face value in India). An interim dividend is declared by the board during the year and paid quickly; a final dividend is recommended by the board but paid only after shareholders approve it at the AGM.

A rights issue is an offer of new shares to existing shareholders in proportion to their holding (for example 1 new share for every 4 held), usually at a discount to the market price. It is a way for a company to raise fresh capital from its own shareholders first.

A demerger is the separation of a business division into an independent company, with existing shareholders receiving shares of the new entity in a fixed entitlement ratio (for example, 1 share of the demerged company for every 1 share held). It is the standard 'value unlocking' move for conglomerates.

A merger (amalgamation) combines two companies into one, with shareholders of the company being absorbed receiving shares of the surviving company in a fixed swap ratio (for example, 10 shares of A for every 7 of B). The swap ratio is the single number that decides who wins the deal.

Delisting is the permanent removal of a company's shares from stock-exchange trading. It is voluntary when promoters buy out public shareholders to take the company private, and compulsory when the exchange removes the stock as a penalty for non-compliance.

An open offer is a mandatory offer an acquirer must make to public shareholders when acquiring substantial ownership or control of a listed company — under SEBI's SAST (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, crossing 25% shareholding triggers an offer for at least a further 26% of the company from the public.

The record date is the cut-off on which a company checks its shareholder register to decide who receives a corporate action (dividend, bonus, split, rights). The ex-date is the first trading day on which buying the share no longer earns that benefit. Under India's T+1 settlement, the ex-date and record date now fall on the same day.

A preferential allotment (or preferential issue) is when a listed company issues new shares, warrants or convertible securities to a specific, named group of investors — promoters, strategic partners, funds or individuals — rather than to all shareholders or the public.

Convertible warrants are securities, usually issued on a preferential basis, that give the holder the right to be allotted a company's equity shares at a price fixed today, within a set period — with part of the price paid upfront and the rest on conversion.

An ESOP allotment is the issue of new shares to employees who have exercised their stock options (ESOPs) or restricted stock units (RSUs), which the company then reports to the exchanges along with its updated share capital.

A board meeting intimation is the advance notice a listed company files with the stock exchanges saying its board of directors will meet on a given date, along with the agenda — such as approving quarterly results, recommending a dividend, or considering a fundraise or buyback.

An Annual General Meeting (AGM) is the shareholder meeting every listed company must hold once a financial year to approve accounts, dividends and director appointments; an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) is any other general meeting, called specially when a decision needs shareholder approval before the next AGM.

A related-party transaction (RPT) is any deal — sales, purchases, loans, guarantees, royalty payments — between a listed company and a 'related party' such as its promoters, promoter-group entities, subsidiaries, directors or their relatives.

A pledge of shares is when a shareholder — almost always a promoter — offers their shares as collateral to borrow money. The shares stay in the promoter's name, but the lender can seize and sell them if the loan isn't serviced.

A SAST disclosure is a filing required under SEBI's Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers (SAST) Regulations, 2011, revealing that an investor has acquired — or changed — a meaningful stake in a listed company.

PIT disclosures are filings under SEBI's Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations, 2015, reporting trades that insiders — promoters, directors and designated employees — make in their own company's shares. These are the legal, disclosed kind of insider trades, distinct from unlawful trading on unpublished price-sensitive information.

A Regulation 30 material event is any development a listed company must disclose to the stock exchanges under Regulation 30 of SEBI's LODR regulations because it could affect the company's operations, finances or share price — from large order wins and plant shutdowns to fraud, raids, litigation and key resignations.

A credit rating action is a change — upgrade, downgrade, outlook revision or watch placement — that a rating agency (CRISIL, ICRA, CARE, India Ratings) makes to its assessment of a company's debt, which listed companies must disclose to the exchanges.

An auditor resignation is when a company's statutory auditor quits before completing its term. Because auditors rarely walk away from fee-paying clients without cause, the filing is treated as one of the strongest governance red flags on the exchanges.

A postal ballot is a mechanism under the Companies Act, 2013 for shareholders to vote on resolutions without convening a general meeting — today conducted almost entirely through remote e-voting.

A board meeting outcome is the exchange filing a listed company makes right after its board of directors meets, stating what the board actually decided — approving quarterly results, recommending a dividend, approving a fundraise, appointing a director, and so on.

A trading window closure is a notice that a company's designated persons — directors, key employees and their relatives — may not trade the company's shares for a period, usually from the end of a quarter until 48 hours after the quarter's results are published.

A newspaper publication filing is the copy a listed company sends to the exchanges of an advertisement it has printed in newspapers — typically its financial results, a notice of a board or shareholder meeting, or a notice about a record date or call money.

A Regulation 74(5) certificate is a quarterly compliance filing confirming that all requests to convert physical share certificates into electronic (demat) form — or back — were processed during the quarter and the exchanges were informed. It is issued by the company's registrar and transfer agent.

An analyst or investor meet filing is a company's advance notice to the exchanges that its management will meet analysts or institutional investors — at a broker's conference, in one-on-one meetings, or on a group call — with the date and format of the meeting.

Key managerial personnel (KMP) are the senior officers a company is legally accountable through: the managing director or CEO, whole-time directors, the chief financial officer and the company secretary, plus any other officer the board designates.

An order win disclosure is a filing in which a company tells the exchanges it has won a significant contract or purchase order — typically naming the customer or sector, the scope of work and the value, or a value range.

An exchange clarification is a query NSE or BSE sends a listed company — and the company's published reply — asking it to confirm, deny or explain a media report, or to say whether it knows of any reason for unusual movement in its share price or volume.

A statement of deviation is a quarterly filing in which a company reports how it has used money raised through a public issue, rights issue, preferential issue or QIP, and whether that use differs from what it told investors. A monitoring agency report is an independent agency's review of the same question for larger issues.

The corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) is the procedure under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 for a company that has defaulted on its debts. Once the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admits an application, the board's powers are suspended and a resolution professional runs the company while its creditors decide whether to accept a resolution plan or send it into liquidation.

Quarterly results are the financial statements every listed Indian company must publish for each three-month period — revenue, expenses, profit and earnings per share — approved by its board and filed with the stock exchanges.

PAT (Profit After Tax) is a company's net profit for a period — revenue minus all operating costs, interest, depreciation and tax. It is the bottom line of the profit-and-loss statement and the number most headlines quote.

EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation — a company's operating profit before financing costs, tax and non-cash charges. It approximates the cash profitability of the core business.

TTM (Trailing Twelve Months) is a company's performance over the most recent four reported quarters added together — a rolling one-year figure that updates every quarter instead of waiting for the annual report.

YoY (year-on-year) compares a quarter's numbers with the same quarter a year earlier; QoQ (quarter-on-quarter) compares them with the immediately preceding quarter. YoY removes seasonality; QoQ shows near-term momentum.

Standalone results report the parent company's own operations; consolidated results combine the parent with its subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates. When both exist, consolidated is the truer measure of what a shareholder owns.

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is the machine-readable format in which listed Indian companies file their financial results with the exchanges and MCA — every figure tagged to a standardised definition instead of sitting in a PDF.

EPS (Earnings Per Share) is a company's profit after tax divided by its number of shares — the slice of earnings attributable to each share you own. It is the denominator of the P/E ratio.

Guidance is management's own forecast of future performance — revenue growth, margin ranges, capex plans or order-book outlook — shared with investors, most commonly on earnings calls and in investor presentations.

An earnings call (concall) is the conference management hosts after results, where executives explain the quarter, share outlook and take analyst questions. In India, listed companies must file the call's recording and transcript with the stock exchanges.

EBITDA margin is EBITDA divided by revenue from operations, expressed as a percentage. It shows how much of each rupee of sales a company keeps after its operating costs, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

Exceptional items are income or expenses that are unusual in size or nature — such as a gain on selling a business, an impairment write-down, a large legal settlement or a one-time restructuring cost — shown on a separate line in a company's profit and loss statement.

An audit qualification is a modification to the auditor's opinion on a company's financial statements. A qualified opinion says the accounts are fair except for a specific matter; an adverse opinion says they are not fair; a disclaimer says the auditor could not form an opinion. An emphasis of matter is different — it draws attention to something already disclosed in the accounts without modifying the opinion.

A going concern doubt is a warning — from the auditor or the company — that there is a material uncertainty about whether the company can continue operating and meet its obligations over the coming year.

Cash flow from operations (CFO, or operating cash flow) is the cash a company's core business generates in a period — profit adjusted for non-cash items such as depreciation, and for changes in working capital like receivables, inventory and payables.

FPIs (Foreign Portfolio Investors) are SEBI-registered foreign funds and institutions that invest in Indian stocks and bonds; FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) is the older name for the same investor class, and the two terms are used interchangeably.

DIIs (Domestic Institutional Investors) are India-based institutions — mutual funds, insurance companies, banks and pension funds — that invest in the stock market with domestic money.

A bulk deal is a transaction where a single client's total buying or selling in one stock crosses 0.5% of the company's listed equity shares within a trading day; exchanges disclose these deals — with the client's name, quantity and price — the same evening.

A block deal is a single, large, pre-negotiated trade between two parties executed through a separate block-deal window on the exchange, at a price within a narrow band around the prevailing market price.

A QIP (Qualified Institutions Placement) is a fund-raising route where a listed Indian company issues new shares (or convertibles) directly to qualified institutional buyers, without a full public offering.

An OFS (Offer for Sale) is an exchange-run mechanism through which promoters or other large shareholders of a listed company sell shares they already own to institutional and retail bidders — no new shares are created.

Circuit limits are exchange-set daily price bands on individual stocks — commonly 2%, 5%, 10% or 20% — beyond which orders outside the band are not accepted; hitting the band is called being 'locked in upper (or lower) circuit'.

In India, large caps are the top 100 companies by average market capitalisation, mid caps are ranks 101–250, and small caps are rank 251 onwards — a classification maintained by AMFI and refreshed every six months for mutual-fund purposes.

Promoter holding is the percentage of a company's shares owned by its promoters — the founders or controlling group responsible for running it — as disclosed in the quarterly shareholding pattern filed with the exchanges.

An IPO (Initial Public Offering) is the first time a company sells its shares to the public, after which the stock lists and trades on the NSE and/or BSE.

IPO subscription categories are the investor buckets an Indian IPO's shares are divided into — Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB), Non-Institutional Investors (NII, often called HNIs) and Retail Individual Investors — each with its own reserved share of the issue and its own subscription figure.

Anchor investors are qualified institutional buyers — typically mutual funds, insurers and large foreign funds — who are allotted part of an IPO's institutional quota one working day before the issue opens to the public.