The Hindu : Disinvestment revenue to reach Rs. 4,300 crores

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Saturday, Feb 01, 2003

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Disinvestment revenue to reach Rs. 4,300 crores

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Jan. 31. The Disinvestment Ministry expects revenues from privatisation to reach about Rs. 4,300 crores as against the budget target of Rs. 12,000 crores for 2002-03. This is higher than anticipated but is based on the assessment that proceeds from the forthcoming public offer of Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) will be about Rs. 700 crores.

Disclosing this here today, the Disinvestment Secretary, Pradeep Baijal, said only disinvestment of MUL was expected to be completed in the current fiscal, out of the companies for which the divestment process is under way.

He said the Government had already raised Rs. 1000 crores from the first phase of disinvestment through a rights issue, while another Rs. 1400 crores was expected to be mobilised in the next phase. This additional amount would be mopped up in two stages, with the initial public offer expected to yield about Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 crores. The Maruti IPO was expected to be concluded by March 17.

Mr. Baijal was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the All India Management Association (AIMA). He said the realisation from disinvestment had already touched Rs. 3500 crores.

Regarding disinvestment in the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL), which is slated to be sold to a strategic partner, he said advisers would be called to make a presentation within a week.

He hinted at the possibility of the Ministry inviting initial bids from interested parties even as it was in the process of selecting the advisers. He said the possibility was being examined since it had been done in the case of VSNL. However, it depended on the extent of material available about the company.

Mr. Baijal said the Disinvestment Ministry was about to begin the process of sale of residual government equity stake in CMC Limited to the strategic partner, but did not give any time frame for completing this process.

Earlier, addressing the seminar, he spoke in favour of disinvestment through the strategic route, vis-à-vis, public offering route. However, with the Government trying the public offer route in certain cases (BPCL and NALCO), the process may end as a success and his judgment that strategic sale was far better could be wrong, he said.

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