Promoters of Kolkata-headquartered Linde India Ltd (formerly BOC India Ltd) are pruning their stakes to keep the entities listed.

Meanwhile, promoters of another Kolkata-headquartered company — Berger Paints — on Friday pared their stake.

To comply with minimum public shareholding at 25 per cent, BOC Group Ltd (UK), the promoter of Linde India, has proposed to sell a portion of its equity shares in the Indian entity. It informed the stock exchanges on Friday that it intends to offload the shares through one or more offers-for-sale (OFS). BOC Group has appointed Citigroup Global Markets as the broker for the proposed OFS. Timing and size of the OFS, however, would be made known later, it indicated.

BOC Group currently holds 89.48 per cent in the industrial gas manufacturer.

Linde drops 5%

In reaction to the news, Linde India stock on Friday finished 5 per cent down at Rs 268.40 on the BSE, as some of the market players expected a delisting proposal from the company.

After the change in the name, Linde India has informed the stock exchanges about it but only NSE has effected the change on its Web site. BSE and CSE Web sites still carries on with the old name.

Berger Paints, offer-for-sale by its promoter entities — Citland Commercial, Wang Investments, Bigg Investments, Vinu Dhingra and Kuldip Singh Dhingra — have successfully been completed. Currently promoters have 75.74 per cent stake in Berger Paints.

While the promoters offered to sell 18.72 lakh shares through the offer-for-sale window, they received bids for 18.89 lakh shares.

As against the floor price of Rs 185, the indicative price at which maximum number of shares were bid at was Rs 185.46.

The Rs 2 Berger Paints stock finished on the BSE at Rs 192.90.

>jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in

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