Govt invites bids from bankers for stake sale in NMDC, Nalco

The Department of Disinvestment has invited bids from merchant bankers for further divesting government's stake in two Navratnas - NMDC and Nalco.

The Government has decided to disinvest 10 per cent paid up equity of NMDC through Offer for Sale (OFS) of shares through the stock exchanges, Department of Disinvestment said in an advertisement.

The government currently holds 90 per cent stake in the country's top iron ore producer after it offloaded its 8.38 per cent holding of then 98.38 per cent stake in the company in March 2010.

For NMDC stake sale, the last date for submitting expressions of interest (EoI) by merchant bankers is September 28. The role of the  merchant bankers would be to assist and advise the government on modalities of the offer for sale and also conduct market surveys for pricing the offer.

Last week, an inter-ministerial panel headed by DoD Secretary Mohammad Haleem Khan met to decide on appointment of investment bankers for further stake sale in NMDC.

Besides, the department has invited EoIs from merchant bankers, either singly or as a consortium, for stake sale in National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco) before September 27. The government, which has a shareholding of 87.15 per cent in Nalco, wants to divest 12.15 per cent paid up equity share capital in the company through OFS.

In a bid to accelerate the process of disinvestment, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had given directions to officials to expedite the process so that state-owned companies could hit stock markets in time.

The government has proposed to raise Rs 30,000 crore from disinvestment in the current fiscal. However, it has failed to come out with any public offering in first five months of 2012-13.

Last fiscal, due to volatile market conditions, the government had to postpone the sell off process in some PSUs. It raised only Rs 14,000 crore in 2011-12 against a target of Rs 40,000 crore.