Govt plans to sell up to 10% in SAIL, offer opens on Thursday 

NEW DELHI:  The government plans to sell up to 10 per cent stake in steel major SAIL with the offer 
for sale opening on Thursday. “Offer for Sale (OFS) in SAIL opens on Thursday for non-retail investors. 15th January is for retail investors.

GoI would divest five per cent equity with a five per cent greenshoe option,” Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey tweeted on Wednesday. The government holds 75 per cent stake in the steel behemoth. It had divested some five per cent equity in Steel Authority of India (SAIL) about six years back.

The floor price for the offer has been set at Rs 64 per share according to a regulatory filing. Some 20.6 crore shares with a face value of Rs 10 each will be on sale with an option to sell up to 20.6 crore equity shares. If the total 10 per cent is sold off, the government could potentially raise nearly Rs 2,700 crore from the sell-off. Finance Ministry had set a target of raising Rs 2.1 lakh crore from disinvestment this year and has come nowhere near that target. Till now the government has raised Rs 28,298.26 crore from disinvestment. 

The sell-off in the blue-chip steel major at the beginning of a commodity cycle where steel prices are going up is seen as a way of raising some money ahead of the budget. The government has also lined up a Rs 4,600-crore initial public offering of the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), a state-run railway 
financing firm. The IRFC issue is opening next week on January 18 which could fetch over Rs 1,500 crore. 

It has set a price band of Rs 25 to Rs 26 per equity share for the share sale.  Other major sell offs such as that of Air India and BPCL are not expected this financial year and are likely to be completed only in the next financial year.