CCEA likely to take up SAIL disinvestment proposal tomorrow

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to consider tomorrow a proposal for disinvesting government's 10.82% stake in Steel Authority of India (SAIL), official sources said.

The proposal, mooted by the Department of Disinvestment, was deferred in the last week's meeting of CCEA as Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma and Steel Secretary D R S Chaudhary were not in the city.
 
SAIL's share sale is proposed to be conducted through auction route or offer for sale and is expected to garner Rs 4,000 crore to the government kitty, the sources added.
 
However, the Disinvestment Department has not fixed any particular time frame for the SAIL's stake sale as its timing will depend on market conditions, they further said.
 
The government currently holds 85.82% stake in SAIL.
 
Shares of the company were trading at Rs 93.05 apiece on the BSE, up 1.31% from the previous close.
 
Since the beginning of this fiscal, company's shares have gone down by over 4%, while both BSE benchmark Sensex and National Stock Exchange index Nifty have declined by over 2%.
 
The poor market conditions have played spoilsport for the government to launch the disinvestment programme for the current fiscal, although it aims to raise Rs 30,000 crore by selling stakes in the public sector firms.
 
Few days back, it had to put on hold the initial public offer (IPO) of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) due to volatility in the markets and lukewarm response of prospective investors in the roadshows held last week.
 
The RINL IPO, in which the government has proposed to divest its 10 per cent stake, was supposed to kick start this year's share sale programme of the government.
 
Hindustan Aeronautics, BHEL, National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Hindustan Copper and Oil India are some of the other PSUs which are on government's disinvestment radar this year, besides SAIL and RINL.
 
Poor market conditions had spoiled government's disinvestment programme last year as well. Against a target of raising Rs 40,000 crore through PSU's stake sale in the last fiscal, the government could mop up only Rs 14,000 crore.