The follow-on public offer of Engineers India received decent response, getting subscribed 2.83 times. The price band is fixed at ₹145-150 a share.
By the end of business hours on Wednesday, the Government’s 10 per cent share sale in Engineers India Ltd had garnered bids for 9.52 crore shares, compared with 3.36 crore shares on offer.
However, the response from retail investors has been significant. Data available with the stock exchanges showed the retail portion was subscribed almost 2.5 times.
As against an offer of 1.16 crore shares, retail investors bid for 2.88 crore shares. The Government offered a discount of ₹6 a share to retail investors and employees of the engineering giant participating in the offer. Five per cent of the offer was reserved for EIL employees.
The maximum number of bids came in at the upper price band of ₹150. At this price, the share sale would fetch ₹500 crore to the exchequer.
The Government, which currently holds 80.4 per cent in the company, had divested a 10 per cent stake in 2010 at ₹290 a share.
The stake sale is being managed by ICICI Securities, IDFC, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Edelweiss Financial Services and IDBI Capital.
The Government has so far raised about ₹3,000 crore of its disinvestment target of ₹40,000 crore for the current financial year.
Following the success of the Engineers India FPO, the Government may push through stake sales in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and Hindustan Aeronautics too.