Government manages to succeed with ONGC share sale

Mar 01, 2012 |

New Delhi / Mumbai

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After some hiccups and a late government intervention, the sale of government's 5 per cent stake in ONGC through an auction finally managed to sail through with an estimated proceeds of about Rs12,000 crore to partly meet the disinvestment target of current fiscal.

Hectic parleys were held for more than four hours after the end of the auction process at 1530 hours and a final tally of the bids remained elusive for that time.

Late in the night, top finance ministry officials confirmed that the share sale has been a success and the government has raised the desired proceeds from the auction.

After putting the final bid tally after the end of the auction at about 22.9 crore shares, as against total offer size of 42.77 crore shares, the stock exchanges also later said that the issue has got fully subscribed in the auction, where the floor price was fixed at Rs 290 a piece.

Speaking to reporters, Additional Secretary in Department of Disinvestment Siddharth Pradhan said that the issue has got fully subscribed and the market regulator Sebi has been asked to look into the technical glitches due to which some bids could not get registered. Till about 9 pm the stock exchange data continued to show that the issue had failed to receive the desired bids.

As reports earlier in the day were not encouraging with bids worth only about Rs 8,500 crore, the government appears to have nudged the public sector giants, including LIC, to pitch in with their bids and help the issue sail through.

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