Hindustan Copper Ltd on Monday reported its Q2 results and paved way for an early 9.5 per cent disinvestment.

HCL net profit in the quarter to September 30 showed a decline at Rs 43.7 crore against Rs 46.46 crore in the comparable quarter last year and Rs 48.01 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal. The H1 EPS (face value Rs 5) stood down at Rs 1.01 from Rs 1.16 in H1 of 2011-12.

The HCL stock closed 2.7 per cent down at Rs 261.25 on the BSE with 1.09 lakh shares changing hands. On NSE, the stock had a traded quantity of 2.44 lakh shares.

The 99.49 per cent Government-held HCL, which is likely to see divestment auction later this month, may have limited road shows in Mumbai and Chennai shortly. According to sources in merchant banking circles, the designated merchant bankers -- ICICI Securities, UBS Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital, SBI Capital and Enam Securities -- suggested having at least a couple of investor meet in the domestic circles.

“Now that the latest results are out, the PSU can hold road shows and share performance and financial data with the prospective investors”, said head of a merchant bank.

The crucial floor price determination is co-related to various inputs including investors feedback, market price trend and company’s fundamentals. A section of the market insiders told Business Line told Business Line though the extremely low-float HCL’s stocks have come down substantially in the past couple of years, it price discovery had never been true to its fundamentals.

“A realistic auction floor price is likely to generate all-round interest in the auction from the large players”, said an analyst of an institutional broking firm.

jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in

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