LIC buys 86 percent of Indian Oil Corp shares sold by govt

Back of the envelope calculations reveal that at the floor price of Rs 387 per share, LIC purchased shares worth over Rs 8,000 crore to help the IOC disinvestment sail through, a practice that has been followed even before by the government to ensure PSU stake sales have sufficient response. This takes up LIC’s stake to 11.42 per cent in IOC, up from the 2.83 per cent it had in June 2015.

IOC is the largest enterprise in the country and the foremost ranked Fortune Global 500 Company in India and has presence in the complete hydrocarbon value chain from downstream refining & marketing, pipeline transportation, Petrochemicals, E&P and Gas Marketing.

The Indian government sold 10 percent of Indian Oil, raising around $1.4 billion.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. The current market cap of the company is Rs. Out of the shares offered for sale, 20 per cent was reserved for retail investors, ie, those investors who placed bids for shares of total value of not more than Rs2,00,000.

With the disinvestment, the Government of India’s stake in IOCL declined to 58.57%.

After Monday’s stake sale in IOC, the government will look to sell minority stakes in ONGC, NTPC, NMDC, BHEL, Bharat Electronics and Oil India, among others. In addition a five per cent discount was also offered to retail investors. In the previous fiscal, the government had set a target of Rs 63,425 crore, which was revised down to Rs 36,925 crore, but managed to raise only Rs 24,277 crore, DoD data showed.