Bombay Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in Asia, has announced a bonus share issue for its investors. The investors will receive two extra shares for each BSE share they hold. This is the second bonus share issue post BSE got listed in 2017. The last BSE bonus issue was in 2022 when BSE issued bonus shares in the same ratio, that is 2:1. 

Why this bonus issue? Who is eligible?

Like all other companies, BSE wants to capitalize its free reserves, increase earnings per share (EPS), and well as paid-up capital. Apart from these, since bonus issues are done with reserves, the companies can utilize the reserves. These bonus shares are issued at no cost, which means the shareholders get extra shares for free. Here, BSE will issue two free shares for one share held. 

However, the bonus shares eligibility for the BSE bonus shares is that the shareholders must have purchased the stocks before the ex-date for the bonus issue. In case of BSE bonus issue, the record date and ex-date are yet to be finalized. 

BSE Share Performance 

BSE Share has offered over ₹170 per share as dividends since listing, while the stock has risen over 1400% during the period. In the past six months, the stock has risen around 40%, and today, as a bonus has been declared, it has dipped nominally by 0.5% at around 12.50 p.m. However, on Friday, it was trading around 16% higher and closed at ₹5438 a share. 

BSE also carried out buybacks of shares (equity) within these 8 years, once in 2019 and then in 2023. 

Apart from the bonus share issue, the BSE CEO & MD Sundararaman Ramamurthy said that they will not run after derivative market share and whether they will shift the options expiry date or not is subject to more scrutiny. 

Source: CNBC TV18

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