International Coal Ventures Pvt. Ltd. (ICVL), the joint venture of five public sector companies, has shortlisted five properties for a possible acquisition, ICVL chief C. S. Verma said here on Saturday.
Addressing presspersons, he said, “This is the best time for an acquisition outside. We have shortlisted four to five coking coal assets in various countries”. The countries included South Africa and Mozambique, he said.
ICVL was a special purpose vehicle formed with contribution from Steel Authority of India, Coal India, NTPC, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and NMDC with the objective of pooling the resources of the companies for acquiring coal assets abroad.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Verma, was here to chair a meeting of the Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE).
In response to a question on why ICVL had not been able to progress with any acquisition, Mr. Verma said that many a time plans had to be abandoned due to volatile conditions in the international coal market.
On NTPC’s decision to quit the consortium, he said that NTPC’s 14 per cent share was likely to be distributed among the rest. “However, a decision on this issue will be taken once an acquisition is made”. He declined to put a date to this. ICVL was incorporated on May 20, 2009 with the coming together of five of India’s largest public sector companies for securing metallurgical coal and thermal coal assets abroad. The initial authorised capital was up to Rs.10,000 crore with an initial equity capital of Rs.3,500 crore to be contributed progressively.
ADVERTISEMENT
Perspective plan
On Legacy Iron Ore, the Australian company in which NMDC had acquired a 50 per cent stake, Mr. Verma said that a perspective plan was now being made, and further investments were proposed. Mr. Verma is also the chairman of NMDC.
Referring to PSUs, he said that of the 260 PSUs, 220 were operational and over the last decade the number of loss-making PSUs had declined from 105 in 2001-02 to 63 in 2011-12.
He said that SCOPE was planning to set up a training institute for entry-level and middle-level PSU executives.