Government to sell up to 3 pc stake in Coal India; fixes floor price at Rs 225 per share

New Delhi/ Kolkata, May 31

The government will offload up to three per cent stake in Coal India Ltd through the offer for sale route starting on Thursday and the disinvestment will fetch at least Rs 4,158 crore for the exchequer.

This will be the first stake sale in a public sector undertaking by the government in the current financial year.

The floor price has been fixed at Rs 225 per share for the two-day Offer for Sale (OFS).

“Offer for sale in CIL opens tomorrow for non-retail investors. Retail investors can bid on Friday. Government will divest 3% equity including a Green Shoe option of 1.5 per cent,” Department of Investment and Public Asset Management Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said in a tweet on Wednesday.

In a stock exchange filing, the PSU behemoth said government will offload 9.24 crore shares amounting to a stake of 1.5 per cent in the company at a floor price of Rs 225 a share. Besides, there will be a green shoe option for selling an equal amount of stake in case of over subscription.

At the floor price of Rs 225, which is at a 6.7 per cent discount over the closing price of Coal India on BSE on Wednesday, the sale would fetch about Rs 4,158 crore.

Shares of CIL closed at Rs 241.20, down 1.29 per cent over previous close on the BSE.

Currently, the government holds 66.13 per cent stake in Coal India.

For the current fiscal, the government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 51,000 crore.