The Offer For Sale route for 12.5 per cent disinvestment in Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) will begin on March 8.
The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on disinvestment, headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, met today and decided on the stake sale.
“EGoM met today and the notice to exchanges will be given today evening and OFS will come day after tomorrow. Government will divest 12.5 per cent stake,” Disinvestment Secretary Ravi Mathur told reporters here today.
The Finance Ministry is considering to sell 12.5 per cent stake or 6.89 crore shares of the company through the OFS route.
Shares of RCF were trading up 2.14 per cent at Rs 45.25 on the BSE at 10.20 a.m. today.
Sources said the Government could raise between Rs 250-300 crore from the stake sale. The Government holds 92.5 per cent stake in RCF and the paid-up capital of the company is Rs 551.69 crore.
The Cabinet had approved the RCF stake sale in December. The stake sale would help the Government inch closer to the disinvestment target for the current fiscal.
As per the revised estimates, the Government is likely to raise Rs 24,000 crore lower than the budgeted Rs 30,000 crore. So far this fiscal, it has raised over Rs 21,500 crore.
In the remaining weeks of the fiscal ending March 31, the Finance Ministry plans to sell stake in three more companies — MMTC, SAIL and Nalco.