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Engineers India share sale subscribed 2.83 times; exchequer gets Rs 500 crore

The government's 10 per cent share sale in Engineers India Ltd (EIL) garnered bids for 2.83 times of the shares on offer on final day today, raking in Rs 500 crore to the exchequer.

Bids for over 9.52 crore shares were received, accounting for 2.83 times the shares on offer, as per data on the National Stock Exchange.

Government is selling over 3.36 crore shares or 10 per cent of its stake in EIL through a Follow on Public Offer (FPO) and the price band is Rs 145-150 apiece.

At the upper end of price band, the share sale would fetch Rs 500 crore to the exchequer. As much as 35 per cent of the issue size is reserved for retail investors.

The government, which currently holds 80.4 per cent in the miniratna company, had divested a 10 per cent stake in 2010.

In January last year, the government decided to go in for further disinvestment in EIL, a leading provider of design, engineering and project management and consultancy services for the hydrocarbon sector.

A discount of Rs 6 per share would be offered to retail investors and employees participating in the offer. Five per cent of the offer has been reserved for EIL employees.

The stake sale is being managed by ICICI Securities, IDFC and Kotak Mahindra Capital, Edelweiss Financial Services and IDBI Capital.

This is the second disinvestment through a follow-on offer in the current financial year. In December, government sold 4 per cent in Power Grid Corporation of India, which fetched the exchequer over Rs 1,600 crore.

The government has so far has raised about Rs 3,000 crore of its disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore for the current financial year.