Govt successfully prunes stake in IRCTC by 20% as OFS sails through

Retail investors lapped up all the shares in the offer a day after institutional investor portion was subscribed 1.34 times

Retail investors lapped up all the shares in the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) offer for sale on Friday. 

A day earlier, the institutional investor portion of the OFS was subscribed 1.34 times. Through the OFS, the Centre has successfully divested 20 per cent stake in the railway ticketing firm. 

The Centre had set the floor price of the OFS at Rs 1,367. However, most bids came around Rs 1,378, data provided stock exchanges show. 

Shares of IRCTC ended at Rs 1,425 on Friday. Following the share sale, the government’s stake in IRCTC will drop to 67.4 per cent. 

Federal-Mogul OFS bombs again

The promoters of MNC firm Federal-Mogul Goetze face a challenging task of pruning their shareholding to comply with the 25 per cent minimum public shareholding norms. 

The two attempts by promoters to sell their shares to public have both failed. The offer for sale (OFS) launched this week got bids for only 22,581 shares as against 11.5 million on offer. 

The earlier OFS in October had met with a similar fate. It was subscribed less than 10 per cent. Federal-Mogul’s promoter Tenneco, an US-based automotive product manufacturer, has to bring down its holding from current 96.82 per cent to below 75 per cent to comply with the minimum public shareholding norms by January 2021. 

Following an indirect change in ownership, Tenneco launched a mandatory 25 per cent open offer in Federal Mogul, which concluded in January. Following the open offer, the promoter shareholding went up from 74.98 per cent to 96.82 per cent.