Indian government to sell 10% stake in iron ore miner NMDC Dec 12
Singapore (Platts)--11Dec2012/510 am EST/1010 GMT
The Indian government has set Wednesday, December 12, as the date for
divesting 10% of its 90% shareholding in state-owned miner NMDC Limited,
the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange late Monday.
The government proposes to sell 396,471,600 equity shares of the company
with a face value of Rupee 1 (1.8 cents) each, which amounts to 10% of the
shareholding.
The sale will be executed on the BSE and the National Stock Exchange of
India from 0915 hours (0345 GMT) to 1530 hours local time on Wednesday.
NMDC is under the aegis of the Indian steel ministry. Approval for this
divestment was granted by India's Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in
late October.
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In an earlier divestment in March 2010, New Delhi had raised Rupees 99
billion ($1.8 billion) against an expected Rupees 120 billion through the
sale of an 8.38% stake in the miner.
NMDC is India's largest merchant iron ore miner with a production
capacity of 32 million mt/year, and it plans to ramp up its capacity to 48
million mt/year by the 2014-15 fiscal year. In the fiscal year ended March
2012, NMDC produced 27.3 million mt of iron ore, accounting for 16.1% of
India's total output, a company document said.
It operates iron ore mines at Kirandul and Bacheli in the central state
of Chhattisgarh, and at Donimalai and Kumaraswamy in the southern state of
Karnataka, with access to a total 977.4 million mt of proved ore reserves.
The Chhattisgarh mines contribute to about 80% of NMDC's total iron ore
output.
In international markets, NMDC holds a 50% equity stake in Australian
miner, Legacy Iron Ore, which it acquired in December 2011. NMDC also has a
50:50 joint venture agreement signed in September 2010 with South Africa's
Kopano Ke Matla Investment Company to acquire and develop iron ore, coal and
manganese assets there.
--Anitha Krishnan, anitha_krishnan@platts.com
--Edited by Geetha Narayanasamy, geetha_narayanasamy@platts.com