new delhi capital markets regulator sebi on tuesday tweaked the offer for sale ofs framework to provide more flexibility to promoters and large shareholders planning to sell their shares through the mechanismunder the revised framework the coolingoff period required between two ofs has been reduced to 2 weeks from 12 weeksbesides retail investors have been allowed to bid for the unsubscribed portion of the nonretail segment and unit holders of listed real estate investment trusts reits and infrastructure investment trusts invits have been allowed to offer their holdings through the ofs mechanismthe new framework would come into force from february 10in a circular sebi said the minimum offer size should be at least rs 25 crore for selling shares through the ofs mechanism by shareholdershowever offer size can be less than rs 25 crore by promoters or promoter group entities so as to achieve minimum public shareholding in a single tranchethis comes after the sebi board in september decided to do away with the requirement of minimum 10 per cent shareholding for the nonpromoter shareholders for offering shares through the ofs routecurrently promoters and nonpromoter shareholders holding at least 10 per stake in a company and willing to offer shares worth at least rs 25 crore are eligible to participate in the ofs mechanismthe ofs mechanism is available to companies with a market capitalisation of rs 1000 crore and abovewith regard to the coolingoff period sebi said the existing period of 12 weeks for ofs has been reduced to a range of 2 weeks to 12 weeks based on the liquidity of securities of such eligible companiesnotwithstanding the coolingoff period the promoter or promoter group entities of companies whose shares are either liquid or illiquid can offer their shares only through ofs or qualified institutional placement qip with a gap of 2 weeks between successive offerswith regard to allocation a minimum of 25 per cent of the shares offered would be reserved for mutual funds and insurance companies and at least 10 per cent of the offer size would be reserved for retail investorsin order to ensure that shares reserved for retail investors do not remain unallocated due to insufficient demand by the retail investors the bids of nonretail investors shall be allowed to carry forward to t1 day similarly the unsubscribed portion of the nonretail segment shall be allowed for bidding in the retail segment sebi saidin case of default in payin by any investor 10 per cent of the order value shall be charged as penalty from the investor and collected from the broker this amount would be credited to the investor protection fund of the stock exchange