New Delhi/Mumbai: The 10 percent stake sale in Coal India, in the biggest-ever disinvestment, fetched the government Rs 22,557.3 crore in a bumper sale where state-run LIC alone picked up nearly one-third of the public offer.
The successful disinvestment in Coal India will help the government close the gap on its target of Rs 43,425 crore for the current fiscal ending March 31, 2014, while helping it shore up finances to meet fiscal deficit challenges.
The Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said the success of the share sale reflects the investors’ confidence in the government’s ability to usher in reforms and improvement in the economy. The issue received bids for 67.52 crore shares of the value of Rs 24,210 crore, over-subscribing the offer 1.07 times. This is the biggest share sale by any private or public sector company in India and exceeds the previous record of over Rs 15,000 crore made by CIL itself in 2010. The huge demand for CIL shares came on a day of high market turbulence with the benchmark Sensex falling by nearly 500 points and the total investors wealth slipping by over Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
