State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd on Sunday said it has initiated the process of initial public offer (IPO) with the filing of the Draft Red Herring Prospectus with market regulator SEBI.

HAL has initiated the process of IPO with the filing of the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) on September 29, 2017 with SEBI, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the development, HAL CMD T Suvarna Raju said: “This is a major milestone towards listing of the defence PSU which is slated for partial disinvestment by the government of India.”

The Union government had in 2012 approved the sale of a 10 per cent stake in HAL.

It had in 2013 appointed four merchant bankers — SBI Capital Markets, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Axis Capital — for managing the stake sale.

A top company official, had said in February that 3.615 crore equity shares at a face value of ₹10 would be considered for the IPO, the valuation of which would be done by the Book Running Lead Managers (BRLMS) and the other financial experts.

During 2015-16 twelve crore five lakh shares were offered for buyback in all, amounting to ₹5,265 crore, HAL had earlier said.