The Centre plans to sell up to 15 per cent stake in Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) and has invited bids from merchant bankers for managing the share sale process.

“The government of India intends to disinvest up to 15 per cent paid-up equity capital of RVNL out of its shareholding of 87.84 per cent through offer for sale of shares by promoters through the stock exchanges”, said the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management while inviting bids from merchant bankers.

The Government plans to appoint up to three merchant bankers for managing RVNL share sale.

RVNL, which has a net worth of about ₹4,500 crore, had recorded a net profit of ₹790 crore during 2019-20.

₹580 cr to exchequer

Shares of RVNL closed at ₹18.80 on Friday, up 0.53 per cent over the previous close on the BSE. At the current market price, a 15 per cent stake sale would fetch about ₹580 crore to the exchequer.

So far this fiscal, the Government has mopped up about ₹6,139 crore through OFS and initial public offering of Public enterprises. For the fiscal year 2020-21, the Centre has set a disinvestment target of ₹2.10 lakh crore.

Of this, ₹ 1.20 lakh crore will come from disinvestment of public sector undertakings and another ₹90,000 crore from stake sale in financial institutions.

Given the pandemic situation, achieving this target is going to be an uphill task for DIPAM this fiscal, say economy watchers.

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