RINL issue will be revisited in a month or two: Divestment secretary

NDTV Profit Desk

12 Oct 2012, 05:19 PM IST

Disinvestment secretary Haleem Khan today said the public offer of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) will be revisited in a month or two. Explaining the reason for putting the issue on the back burner, Mr Khan said: "It's initial projections were optimistic," adding that there should be a difference between disinvestment and distress sale.

The initial public offer of RINL was deferred for the third time last week as the Steel Ministry and merchant bankers could not arrive at a consensus on price band. RINL Chairman and Managing Director A. P. Choudhary had not divulged reasons for the deferment of the IPO, which was to hit the markets on October 16.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of Capital Markets Summit (Capam) organised by Ficci in Mumbai, Mr Khan said the biggest issue for the current financial year would be that of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which is expected to rake in more than Rs 10,000 crore for the government.

Further, Mr Khan said the public offers for Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL), Oil India (OIL) and Nalco should come by the end of this month or early November.

Ruling out the need to revisit the pricing strategy for the forthcoming issues, Mr Khan said a committee has been constituted to look into the structure of the public offer for Hindustan Aeronautics, which he said was likely by March 2013.

Mr Khan added that the government is working on ways to engage the Indian diaspora, pension funds and insurance firms in the disinvestment process.

The government is also looking at ways to provide incentives to zero-debt companies to get listed on the bourses.

Speaking on the National Investment Fund (NIF), Mr Khan said it is not a recipe to solve fiscal deficit. All proceeds from disinvestment of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) are to be routed to NIF. The fund is to be maintained outside the Consolidated Fund of India and managed professionally to provide sustainable returns to the government, without any depletion of its corpus.