Mumbai (Platts)--1Mar2011/554 am EST/1054 GMT
The public offer of India's state owned upstream company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corp., where the government of India would divest a 5% stake has been postponed to the next financial year (April 2011-March 2012), disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose said Tuesday. Earlier, ONGC chairman A.K. Hazarika had told Platts that ONGC was getting to ready to file the draft red herring prospectus for the public offer of shares with the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India this week. But, the annual budget for the financial year (April 2011-March 2012) presented Monday now shows the change in disinvestment plans of the government. "The budget estimates for disinvestment revenue for 2011-12 [April-March] is taken as Rupees 400 billion. This includes ONGC. There are also other issues like appointment of independent directors. We would consider all that and draw up fresh schedule of disinvestment," Bose said. Article continues below... Request a free trial of: Oilgram News Oilgram News brings fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news to your desktop every day. Our extensive global network of correspondents report on supply and demand trends, corporate news, government actions, exploration, technology, and much more.
The public offer of India's state owned upstream company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corp., where the government of India would divest a 5% stake has been postponed to the next financial year (April 2011-March 2012), disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose said Tuesday. Earlier, ONGC chairman A.K. Hazarika had told Platts that ONGC was getting to ready to file the draft red herring prospectus for the public offer of shares with the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India this week. But, the annual budget for the financial year (April 2011-March 2012) presented Monday now shows the change in disinvestment plans of the government. "The budget estimates for disinvestment revenue for 2011-12 [April-March] is taken as Rupees 400 billion. This includes ONGC. There are also other issues like appointment of independent directors. We would consider all that and draw up fresh schedule of disinvestment," Bose said.
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Oilgram News brings fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news to your desktop every day. Our extensive global network of correspondents report on supply and demand trends, corporate news, government actions, exploration, technology, and much more.
The government of India now owns a 74.14% stake in ONGC. ONGC company secretary N.K. Sinha said they will decide on filing the draft prospectus with SEBI only after getting instructions from the Department of Disinvestment. As per current regulations, ONGC needs at least three more independent directors on its board, Sinha said. Bose also said there is no decision yet on public share offer of state-owned refining and marketing company Indian Oil Corp. "The IOC issue will be decided later. It hasn't yet got the Cabinet clearance," Bose said. The government had proposed to divest a 10% stake in IOC and the company planned to issue additional 10% shares to the public to raise money to fund its expansions. Increasing global crude prices and mounting under recoveries, or losses incurred by selling fuel at less than market rates, have made a public issue for IOC difficult. The government of India now holds a 78.92% stake in IOC.--M.C. Vaijayanthi, newsdesk@platts.com