New Delhi : Faced with lukewarm retail investor response, the government is mulling stake sale in selected bluechip PSUs, including Oil India and ONGC, by offering shares only to institutional investors. A top government official said that the Ministry of Finance is considering opting for the Institutional Placement Programme route for diluting stake in bluechip PSUs.
“Experience shows that timing of the market both in case of OFS and FPO has been difficult. We are now considering to offer PSU shares to a clutch of FIIs and domestic institutions to bid them out,” the official told PTI.
Disinvestments in recent past, including of NHPC, NTPC and Indian Oil Corporation, had witnessed tepid retail investor response and the portion reserved for retail investors remained undersubscribed.
However, in all the 4 issues institutional investors lapped up the portion reserved for them and were also alloted unsubscribed shares of retail investors.
Asked whether the ultimate goal of disinvestment would be met if retail investors are kept out, the official explained that these institutions would eventually go to market and offload their holding in small quantity and that is when retail investors can buy.
The government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 56,500 crore for the current fiscal. Of this, Rs 30,000 crore will come from minority stake sale and remaining Rs 26,500 crore from strategic stake sale. It has already raised Rs 2,700 crore through 11.36 per cent stake sale in NHPC.
It has lined up as many as 15 PSUs, including Coal India, NMDC, MOIL, MMTC, National Fertilisers, NHPC, and Bharat Electronics, for stake sale in current fiscal.
