What Are Unlisted Shares: A Beginner’s Guide
Indian investors are spoilt for choice as they have a wide range of investment options and among them investing in unlisted shares has piqued the interest of a lot of investors.
Unlisted shares are shares of companies that are not listed on stock exchanges like NSE or BSE where equities are traded. The company has not gone public and the shares of the company are privately held by only a few investors.
In recent times, buying unlisted shares have become easy through various investment platforms and it gives a first mover advantage for early investors. Any interested investors can call Aetram Trades through 044-48680008 and 044-49477777 to buy unlisted shares at competitive price and the best part is these unlisted shares can be held in your demat account with Aetram.
You can easily open a free demat account with Aetram in a few minutes and the account opening process is completely online. As part of providing value to our clients, we charge only Rs 15 per order across various segments like equities, futures, options, commodities, etc. All demat account holders of Aetram will get a free access to state-of-the-art analytics tool which comes with nearly 40 ready-made options strategies and more.
Benefits of investing in unlisted shares
Early investors in unlisted shares of good companies have an advantage because they can buy the shares at a bargain and if the shares get listed at a premium they can benefit from listing gains. When you buy shares of the company, you become a part owner of the company.
Investors get to invest in unique private companies present in new-age industries and sunrise sectors. You do not have to wait till the company goes public and allows investors to diversify across sectors.
If you plan to invest in unlisted shares of a company, then you have the opportunity to invest at various stages of growth of the company from startups to pre-IPO.
Since they are not listed in the market, they are not affected by any downturn or volatility in the overall market.
Risks involved in unlisted shares
Unlisted shares are not regulated and they carry inherent risk. The pricing is not transparent as the shares are not listed on exchanges and it varies based on the sell price quoted by the seller.
The volume of shares that are being traded on a daily, weekly or monthly basis is unknown. As a result, there will be liquidity issues and if someone wants to sell unlisted shares at a particular price, it will be difficult to find a buyer and takes a lot of effort and time. So if you plan to buy an unlisted share then you should be ready to hold it for a longer period of time. Similarly, sellers also find it tough to liquidate the shares and convert it into cash.
Unlisted shares have very less public information and it would be challenging to determine the financial health and performance of the company.
Different types of sellers of unlisted shares
Promoters of the company would like to sell shares to raise capital for business expansion, pay off debts, personal financial needs, etc.
Employees or ex-employees who have received company shares through ESOPs (employee stock options) may want to sell their shares to book profit or due other reasons.
Some Portfolio Management Services (PMS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) also sell unlisted shares of high-quality companies to their clients as part of their diversification strategy.
Angel investors, private equity, and venture capital firms would have invested in promising startups and mid-sized companies and these investors would like to exit after a few years. So if you plan to buy unlisted shares, you can buy from these sellers.
Conclusion
As an investor, if you want to explore unlisted shares and invest in them, then an important part of the investing process is selecting a reputed, trusted and SEBI-registered stock broker like Aetram Trades. Though there are opportunities in unlisted shares space, it has a lot of risks associated with it. A SEBI-registered stock broker like Aetram Trades can help ease the investment process and it can offer a transparent and secure process.