NMDC share sale commences at bourses

State-run iron ore miner NMDC's share sale programme for diluting 10 per cent of government's stake at Rs 147 a share commenced on Wednesday at leading bourses.

The disinvestment through the offer for sale (OFS) route will close at 3.30 pm on Wednesday and if fully-sold, it would fetch Rs 5,828 crore to the cash-pressed exchequer.

On Tuesday evening, the government had set the floor price for selling NMDC's 39,64,71,600 shares at Rs 147 per share, a 7.7 per cent discount over the firm's closing price of Rs 159.30 apiece on the BSE.

NMDC has kept one-fourth of the issue reserved for mutual funds and insurance companies. The government had 90 per cent stake in the iron ore miner as on September-end.

However, no single bidder, other than mutual funds and insurance firms, would be allocated more than 25 per cent of the total offer, the iron ore miner had said in an exchange notification earlier.

Meanwhile, the scrip of the company plunged 1.60 per cent to Rs 156.75 a share on the BSE in the early morning trade.

NMDC is the second disinvestment candidate in the current fiscal in which the government plans to raise Rs 30,000 crore by selling stakes in around a dozen PSUs.

On November 23, it had garnered Rs 808 crore by selling 5.58 per cent of its stake in Hindustan Copper.