New Delhi, Jan. 5 The Government on Wednesday invited applications to appoint merchant bankers for advising it on the timing and other aspects of the proposed ONGC’s Rs 13,500-crore public offer which is being targeted to hit the market in March.

“Proposals are invited, from reputed merchant bankers, either singly or as a consortium, with experience and expertise in public offering in capital market to act as a book running lead managers (BRLMs) and to assist and advise the government in the process,” the Finance Ministry said in a public statement.

The Government plans to sell 5 per cent of its stake in Oil and Natural Gas Corp through the further or follow-on public offering (FPO), which at current prices can fetch up to Rs 13,500 crore.

Interested parties can submit their proposals to the Government by January 14, 2011.

According to an official, the short-listed merchant bankers would be called for presentations on January 15 and 16 and six BRMLs for the FPO would be appointed the following day.

Legal advisors would be called for presentations on January 18 and would be engaged the next day.

The red herring prospectus for the FPO would be filed around mid-February, before which five more independent directors on the board of ONGC will be appointed to meet market regulator SEBI’s listing requirement.

ONGC has six functional directors besides the Chairman and Managing Director. It also has two government-appointed nominee directors taking the total strength to nine.

Besides, the company currently has four independent directors and it needs five more to meet the SEBI’s listing requirements.

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