BPCL tanks 6% after BPCL Trust offloads up to 7% stake in firm

The company's board has approved the sale of BPCL equity shares which are held by the BPCL Trust for Investment in shares through accelerated book built offering

Shares of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) dipped 6 per cent to Rs 438 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in intra-day trade on Tuesday after BPCL Trust for Investment in Shares (BPCL Trust) sold up to 7 per cent of its stake in state-owned energy company through a block deal.

Till 09:21 am, around 153.66 million equity shares, representing 7.08 per cent of total equity, of BPCL had changed hands on the NSE. On the BSE, around 7.5 million equity shares or 0.34 per cent equity of the state-owned company had changed hands, the exchange data shows. The names of the buyers were not ascertained immediately.

On Monday, BPCL informed the stock exchanges that, a sub-committee of the board of directors of the company has approved the sale of BPCL equity shares which are held by the BPCL Trust for Investment in shares through accelerated book built offering of equity shares on the screen-based trading platform of the stock exchanges.

The total number of equity shares being offered is up to 159 million equity shares or 7.33 per cent stake held by the above trust, it said. READ HERE

Earlier this month BPCL board had approved to sell the firm's holding in the Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) for Rs 9,878 crore as part of its divestment process. The country's second-biggest state refiner is to sell its entire equity shares of 453.55 million equity shares in Numaligarh Refinery to a consortium of Oil India and Engineers India and may also include the state government of Assam, according to an exchange filing made by the company.

The government on November 20, 2019, had accorded in-principle approval for strategic disinvestment of its shareholding in BPCL. According to media reports, the government had received three preliminary bids, including one from Vedanta, for selling its stake in BPCL.