Read more: Meet Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the new SEBI chief
For a brief three-year term, her list of successes is impressive. Buch has made same-day settlement a reality albeit in a limited way. What’s more, SEBI has been able to achieve this despite severe market inertia and reluctance from foreign portfolio investors, custodians, banks and brokers.
The process to reduce the time taken for a rights issue is currently underway. A key achievement of Buch, indeed one of the last regulations she signed, was the introduction of specialised investment funds positioned in between mutual funds and portfolio management services.
With PMS available only for HNIs who can afford above ₹50 lakh minimum investment, an SIF for those who have more stomach for risk than mutual funds take, was a good idea and should take off in the days to come.
Similarly, the smaller-sized REITs (real estate investment trusts) initiated by Buch may well become one of the most popular retail investment products in a country that reveres investment in property and where the young demography points to an explosive demand for homes and offices
Buch’s most admirable and lasting contribution is that she extensively and aggressively used technology in all aspects of SEBI’s work; most importantly to clean up the market, to go after mule accounts, insider trading, related party transactions and numerous other widely known and mostly tolerated ills in the market.
Technology is but one tool she used efficiently. More generally, Buch is widely admired by her colleagues for her ability and drive to get things done. “She is deadline-oriented, data-oriented, and delivery-oriented, all of which make for a great package,” Buch’s former colleague G Mahalingam told me. Many regulators are intelligent but get caught up in minutiae and routine. But Buch has been outcome-oriented, according to her colleagues.
Almost everyone who has worked with her in SEBI, including journalists who cover the market regulator, noted Buch’s grasp on her territory. “Compared to any other SEBI chief, she would stand out as most knowledgeable on almost all aspects of markets as she came with hands-on experience,” said Mahalingam.
Many former and current colleagues also had similar praise for her dogged hard work, her diligence and eye for detail which some hailed as thoroughness and some as micromanagement.
Indeed market experts and fellow regulators said Buch’s frenetic pace to get things done may have sometimes been counterproductive. She published a record number of consultation papers, with which even well-meaning people in the market could not keep pace. Hence, many a veteran market participant couldn’t respond to these consultation papers on time.
Eventually, when circulars were made based on these consultation papers, they may not have reflected the best wisdom of the market. Buch would have been more successful if she attempted less, said one market veteran.
One unfortunate part of Buch’s career was the aspersions cast by the US-based short-seller Hindenburg, accusing her of proximity to the Adani group. Several senior executives who have worked with her very closely rubbished the accusations. “In a sense, one can’t speak with certainty even about one’s spouse, but with that caveat, I can say with confidence that Buch’s integrity is beyond reproach,” another colleague said.
Perhaps her disclosures could have been more copious, said one bureaucrat; but he admitted that Indian disclosure rules are largely designed for former bureaucrats. Buch is one of the rare regulators who has held a number of positions in various private and market entities and hence different or additional disclosure rules may be needed to be written for such candidates, he opined.
Speaking of achievements, one unfinished task is the rules SEBI was writing to curb the immense speculative activity in the derivatives market. It is tough to believe anyone is hedging risk every week. Speculators are a large part of the F&O market.
However, market interests in this space are way too entrenched and could barely be reined even with SEBI’s best efforts under Buch. Indeed, these interests could have worked to ensure she didn’t get an extension.
One criticism, according to news reports and some SEBI inmates has been about Buch’s people management. A few months back, some SEBI officers wrote to the finance ministry accusing her of fostering a toxic work culture. SEBI inmates complained about her tendency to lose her temper and reprimand senior officers.
An achiever like Buch, doesn’t suffer fools, said a former regulator, adding that ideally admonishing should be done privately. Yet, he readily agreed that perhaps no one would have written letters to the ministry if the admonishing had come from a male boss.
But these are trivial. What Buch will be remembered for is her new products, her drive for market integrity and efficiency, her razor-sharp intellect and the legacy she has left behind at SEBI as a technology-driven regulator. She isn’t even sixty years old. Chances are we may see Buch in another policymaking role before long.
