Govt gets bids worth Rs 28,000 cr for CPSE ETF, to retain Rs 10K cr

The government has received bids worth Rs 28,000 crore in the fifth tranche of CPSE Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) and will retain Rs 10,000 crore.

In a tweet, Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said, "CPSE ETF FFO4 oversubscribed by about 8 times so far against the base issue size of Rs 3,500 crores. Government has decided to retain Rs 10,000 crores."

Anchor investors had put in bids worth Rs 6,072 crore on the first day of the issue on March 19. The issue, which closed on Friday, saw overall subscription of Rs 28,000 crore.

The government had set Rs 3,500 crore as the base issue size for the three-day issuance of the fifth tranche of CPSE ETF, with an option to retain over-subscription of up to Rs 10,000 crore. As much as 30 per cent of the issue size is reserved for anchor investors.

The list of anchor investors include BNP Paribas Arbitrage, Citi Group Global Markets Mauritius Pvt Ltd, Credit Suisse Singapore Ltd, Edelweiss Alpha Fund, ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund, Merrill Lynch Markets Singapore Pte Ltd, and Morgan Stanley (France) S.A., among others.

The ETF tracks shares of 11 CPSEs -- ONGC, NTPC, Coal India, IOC, Rural Electrification Corp, Power Finance Corp, Bharat Electronics, Oil India, NBCC India, NLC India and SJVN.

Through the earlier four tranches of the CPSE ETF, the government has already raised Rs 28,500 crore -- Rs 3,000 crore from the first tranche in March 2014, Rs 6,000 crore in January 2017, Rs 2,500 crore from the third in March 2017 and Rs 17,000 crore in November 2018.

The government has exceeded the disinvestment target set for current fiscal ending March 2019 by Rs 5,000 crore, taking the proceeds to Rs 85,000 crore.