Hind Copper priced at Rs 155/shr

The government has set Rs 155 as the floor price for sale of 4 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper (HCL), hoping to garner at least Rs 573.63 crore from the maiden disinvestment so far in the current fiscal.

"With reference to earlier announcement... regarding offer for sale of shares by promoter... the government of India has now informed BSE that the floor price for the sale in terms of the OFS guidelines shall be... Rs 155 per equity share of Hindustan Copper," the state-run firm said in an exchange filing.

HCL's shares on Thursday settled at Rs 266.30 apiece on the BSE, up 11.33 per cent over the previous closing.

The Rs 155 price tag for the issue price is thus 71 per cent below the last traded price in the BSE.

In a notice of offer for sale (OFS) on Thursday evening, HCL had said that it would not entertain any bid below the base price and added the sale would take place on the separate window of the stock exchanges -- BSE and NSE. The sale will start tomorrow at 9.15 am and close on the same day at 3.30 pm.

The government has also kept the option open for diluting an additional 5.59 per cent stake in the company in case the issue gets a good response.

HCL said 25 per cent of the 3.7 crore shares, representing 4 cent stake, would be reserved for allocation to mutual funds and insurance companies.

"No single bidder other than mutual funds and insurance companies shall be allocated more than 25 per cent of the size of the sale," it added.

On September 14, the government had given its nod for disinvestment of 9.59 per cent equity of the company through an offer for sale of shares through stock exchanges.

Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, Kotak Securities, SBICAP Securities and UBS Securities India would act as "seller's broker" for the issue.

The government aims to garner Rs 30,000 crore by selling its shares in the central PSUs in the current fiscal.

During the current fiscal, it is aiming to sell shares in NALCO, SAIL, MMTC, NMDC, NTPC and Oil India, among others.

Disinvestment Secretary Halim Khan had on Thursday evening said that the next in the line could be NMDC or Oil India.