The sale of government's five per cent stake in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) consisting of 42.8 crore shares, albeit all the chaos, finally met with success. The public sector banks (PSBs) and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which threw a life line at the last minute, aided government in raising the targeted amount of Rs 12,000 crore from the market.
Towards the fag end of the auction, bids worth only Rs 8,500 crore had been received after which public sector banks and LIC jumped into action with the required bids to enable the issue to scrape through. LIC is believed to have bought shares worth over Rs 4,000 crore.
The Centre, which holds a 74.1% stake in the company, had proposed to sell through the auction at a floor price of Rs 290 per share. The auction process was in use for the first time since the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last month allowed shareholders of the country’s top 100 companies to raise funds by auctioning their stakes through stock exchanges.
Even the State Bank of India (SBI) is learnt to have chipped in to enable the issue to sail through as foreign institutions stayed away from bidding. A large number of foreign institutional investors and mutual funds stayed away from the bidding because of the high floor price.
Company Name | CMP |
---|---|
ONGC | 244.35 |
Oil India | 445.05 |
Jindal Drilling&Inds | 745.70 |
Hind Oil Exploration | 194.15 |
Deep Industries | 614.05 |
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