Indian Govt Plans to Sell 1.5% Stake in ONGC

India plans to sell as much as 1.5% stake in state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp., via an offer for sale, according to an exchange filing.

The floor price for the offer is set at 159 rupees apiece. The government aims to raise 30 billion rupees ($397 million) from the share sale.

The government owns a 60.4% stake in ONGC which produces half of India’s oil and gas.

In the Offer For Sale (OFS), a minimum of 25% of the shares are reserved for mutual funds and insurance companies while 10% earmarked for retail investors.

In its Feb. 1 budget, the government slashed its asset sale target to 780 billion rupees from 1.75 trillion rupees budgeted earlier. It has, however, raised only 124 billion rupees so far.

The OFS by the government will be open on March 30 and 31, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.

“The promoter (the government) proposes to sell up to 94,352,094 equity shares of the company, (representing 0.75 per cent of the total paid-up equity share capital of the company) on March 30, 2022 (to non-retail investors) and on March 31, 2022 (to retail investors) with an option to additionally sell 94,352,094 equity shares (in case of oversubscription),” it said.