Mumbai, Feb. 18 (PTI): With just three months left for the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to complete its demutualisation, retail investors eyeing a pie of the BSE shares through its proposed IPO may go dejected. With time running out for the BSE, the bourse may not take the IPO route to offload part of the remaining 46 per cent stake. The BSE had offered a 5 per cent stake to the Deutsche Borse for Rs 189 crore last week. The BSE has to bring down its equity holding to 49 per cent before May 17 to meet the deadline for demutualisation of the exchange.

Explaining the delay in kicking off the process, BSE CEO Rajnikant Patel said, “We could have started the process only after getting the guidelines from the regulators, which came in last December.”

Confident of completing the process of offloading the remaining stake within the stipulated timeframe, Patel said, “We have started with a strategic investor. We can then look at the financial institutions and private equity ... Both foreign and domestic ... That is how we will place the remaining 46 per cent.”

Patel, however, parried questions on whether there would be an IPO to offload a portion of the BSE equity. It is unlikely that there would a public issue as the IPO process cannot be completed within the next 90 days.