Naresh Goyal free from Sebi mandate to offload stake

Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal says he is exempt from the Sebi mandate to bring his shareholding in Jet Airways down to 75%. But he's still looking to offload upto 10% of his shareholding in the company to help it raise money.

He no longer needs to compulsorily sell a part of his stake in Jet Airways to meet Sebi's modified listing guidelines. Last year Sebi issued an order which mandated that promoter shareholding could not be more than 75% in a publicly listed company.

Naresh Goyal owns 80% of Jet Airways and hence would have had to sell at least 5% of his stake.

But now Sebi has said that companies with a market capitalisation greater than thousand crore rupees or at least two crore issued shares can have upto 90% promoter shareholding.

And with Jet qualifying on both counts, Naresh Goyal is not under any compulsion to sell his stake. Inspite of that he still plans to bring his shareholding down to raise money.

"At the moment it's 80%, but I will definitely dilute. We are waiting for the right time and when the market situation improves, I will divest 5-10% stake," he said.

Sources say, Naresh Goyal has been in talks with private equity players for a while now. But he's unable get the valution of Rs 700-800 per share that he wants. Jet shares have been performing poorly over the last six months and the situation is not likely to change soon, especially in the current market conditions.

Apart from this private placement, Jet also plans to raise USD 400 million dollars through a rights issue. This will be used to fund Jet's growth plans, which include inducting about 25 aircraft in its fleet over the next four years.