Govt marks 15 PSUs for divestment; list includes NALCO, NHPC

In a move that is aimed at boosting investor sentiment, the government is mulling stake sale in as many as 15 public sector companies for disinvestment like BHEL, Hindustan Copper, SAIL, NMDC, NHPC, MOIL and Engineers India in the current financial year in an effort to raise 20,000 crore.

The list of the public sector companies was presented in the recently concluded road-shows for Qualified Foreign Investors (QFI) in five Gulf nations. On the sidelines, Thomas Mathew, Joint Secretary (Capital Market) in the Finance Ministry, said, ‘investors have shown great interest in the divestment programmes. Various options are available for offloading shares.’

As per the finance ministry’s plan, 10% stake sale is being considered in companies like NALCO, NHPC, NMDC, MOIL and Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL). Meanwhile a stake sale in NMDC is expected to earn an estimated Rs 6,000 crore, NHPC may fetch Rs 230 crore and MOIL Rs 395 crore. The Department of Disinvestment is also planning a 10% stake sale in Engineers India, which could yield an amount of Rs 790 crore. The government is also planning a 12.5% stake sale of Rashtriya Chemicals (RCF), which would help the exchequer collect Rs 380 crore.

The department has also gone ahead for a 10% stake sale in NALCO, which could fetch an amount close to Rs 12,000 crore based on current market price. Along with 5% stake sale in SAIL, the company is also planning to come out with a fresh issue of equity shares in the open market. Further, 5% stake sale in BHEL is estimated to fetch around Rs 3,000 crore.

Earlier, as a part of disinvestment plan, the government had planned to sell stake in RNIL through an initial public offering (IPO), which got delayed mainly on the back of volatile market conditions. In the last financial year, the government had proposed to raise an amount of Rs 40,000 crore but was only able to achieve Rs 14,000 crore due to volatile market condition.