State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) on Sunday said it has begun the IPO process with the filing of the draft red herring prospectus (DHRP) with the market regulator.

A company statement said the DHRP was filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on September 29.

Commenting on the development, HAL’s chairman-cum-managing director T Suvarna Raju said, "This is a major milestone towards listing of the defence PSU, which is slated for partial disinvestment by the government of India."

The Union government had in 2012 approved the sale of a 10 per cent stake in HAL.

It had in 2013 appointed four merchant bankers---SBI Cap, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Axis Capital--for managing the stake sale.

A top company official during the Aero India in February had said that 3.615 crore equity shares at a face value of Rs 10 would be considered for the IPO, the valuation of which would be done by the book running lead managers and the other financial experts.

During 2015-16, as many as 12.05 shares were offered for buyback in all, amounting to Rs 5,265 crore, HAL had earlier said.