Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Mar 11, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Mar 11, 2004 |
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Industry & Economy
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Disinvestment Strategic sales, public offers can co-exist: Shourie Our Bureau
New Delhi , March 10 THE Disinvestment Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, has said that both strategic sales and public offer routes for selling Government's equity in state-owned companies can co-exist. "One cannot say strategic sale versus public issue...Why can't both be done together. Those companies where the Government does not want a strategic partner, can be divested through the public offer route," Mr Shourie told presspersons here when asked whether the public offer route would be preferred over strategic sales in future disinvestment cases. Enthused by the response of overseas investors for the six public offers, including ONGC, the Disinvestment Minister suggested that the Government should capitalise on the strong sentiments to finance mega projects like interlinking of rivers. ``You can finance large projects, which are Prime Minister's dream projects, like interlinking of rivers. For all these projects there is a great appetite among the international investor community,'' he said, adding that this had to be combined with prompt execution of the projects. According to him, there was great interest and sentiments for India among global investors. ``We should mobilise these sentiments," he noted. ``Here people are thinking how big ONGC's Rs 10,000 crore issue is. But, outside India people are telling me why such a small issue? India can do so much more and there is so much of interest in India," Mr Shourie said. He refused to hazard a guess on the cut-off price for the ONGC public offer, which is slated to close on March 13, but indicated that the book could be closed even at Rs 750. ``There has been a great institutional interest in ONGC. When $3 billion - $4 billion can be raised just in a matter of two weeks, it is a vote of confidence for India,'' he said.
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