Sebi to finalise four reports before March: The Securities and Exchange board of India (Sebi) will come out with guidelines to regulate credit rating agencies, collective investment schemes, employee stock options and revised take-over code before this fiscal. ``All four reports will be out before the end of this financial year,'' said Sebi chairman D R Mehta. Draft guidelines on credit rating agencies have been submittedto Sebi and regulations will be finalised at the next Sebi board meeting in January, he said. On employee stock option scheme he said Sebi had appointed a committee headed by a sebi member Dr J R Varma and the report is ready for Sebi consideration.

UTI ties up with NSDL for demat of schemes: The Unit Trust of India has entered into an arrangement with the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) to offer dematerialisation facility for Mastershare'86, Mastergrowth'93 and Grandmaster'93. These three schemes have a combined corpus of Rs 1,378 crore and the trust expects enhanced liquidity in these units post-dematerialisation. The facility to dematerialise these units is available from December 21 onwards.

BSE may declare two brokers as defaulters: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has shortlisted two brokers, who would be declared defaulter for non-fulfilment of financial obligations. While the first broker, Mahendra C Babu has been asked to repay his dues of Rs 90 lakh worth of shares arisingout of bad delivery introduced on the exchange, SN Tara, who had been accused of price rigging at the counters of BPL, Sterlite and Videocon has an outstanding liability of about Rs 47 lakh. While confirming the move, JC Parekh, president BSE, explained: ``At the earlier board meeting, MC Babu was given a month's time to fulfil his obligations which is to the tune of about Rs 97 lakh. Today is the last day for Babu to pay the amount.''

ICICI mulls two more `safety bond' tranches: ICICI is planning two more public issue of bonds in the current financial year. The Mumbai-based institution, which has tapped the market five times this fiscal, hopes to launch its sixth tranche in January-end and another one in March. So far under the Rs 3000 crore umbrella prospectus, ICICI has been able to garner only around Rs 2000 crore. And with the muted response to the latest Safety Bond issue, which closed for subscription on December 21, ICICI needs to mop another Rs 1000 crore through the two tranches to meet itsumbrella prospectus target. Safety Bonds December '98 has not fared well. Although the issue has mopped up the target amount of Rs 300 crore, in terms for oversubscription, it has not much success.

Pivotals turn weak on fresh FI selling: Pivotals turned weak on the last day of the current settlement at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here today due to fresh offerings by domestic funds. The market opened on a positve note but equities could not maintain their opening levels and declined during the course of trading. Reflecting the trend, Nifty eased by 2 points to close at 857.30 from the last close of 859.30. The CNX NIFTY Junior fell by 10.25 points to end at 1448.00 as against the last close of 1458.25. The S&P CNX DEFTY eased by 1.40 to finish at 698.45 from the last close of 699.85. S&P CNX 500 lost 2.13 at 583.32 from the previous close of 584.17. CNX MIDCAP 200 looked down by 1.75 points to 523.71 from 525.30. The total turnover was Rs. 1779.62 crore from 686.53 lakhshares and in 2,22,664trades. Debentures traded value was Rs. 206.97 lakhs. The exchange witnessed 399 scrips advance, 607 scripsdecline and 124 scrips remain unchanged. 19 securities had hit their price bands today, the NSE said.