After postponing the follow-on public offering (FPO) of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), the government is now likely to defer the Rs 11,500-crore share sale of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to next fiscal.
The FPO was originally scheduled to open on March 15 but has now been rescheduled to April 5, a senior government official said. The FPO will now open on April 5 and close on April 8.
“The rescheduling is partly because of delay in appointment of independent directors on ONGC board to fulfil SEBI’s listing requirement,” he said.
The government is selling its 5% stake, or 427.77 million equity shares, in the FPO that is likely to fetch over R11,540 crore based on Thursday’s closing price of R270 on the BSE. Post divestment, the government’s stake in ONGC would come down to 69.1% from the current 74.1%.
Roadshows to promote the share sale, which were to be held in India and aboard from March 2 to 9, have now been rescheduled to begin on March 21.
While ONGC was ready with its red-herring prospectus for the FPO, it is awaiting appointment of at least one independent director on its board to meet SEBI’s listing requirement, an ONGC executive said.
{{/usCountry}}While ONGC was ready with its red-herring prospectus for the FPO, it is awaiting appointment of at least one independent director on its board to meet SEBI’s listing requirement, an ONGC executive said.
{{/usCountry}}ONGC has six functional directors, besides the chairman. It also has two government nominee directors taking the total strength of functional/ promoter directors to nine.
Against this, the company, at present, has four independent directors and need five more to meet SEBI’s listing norms.