Divestment candidates in limelight on SJVNL success

The public sector undertaking (PSU) disinvestment candidates such as Engineers India, STC India, Hindustan Copper and Dredging Corporation have gained over 4% each, after SJVNL received good response from the investors and got subscribed 6.61 times. The offer also saw a robust participation from retail investors and the portion reserved for them was subscribed 3.11 times.

The government is aiming to raise Rs 40,000 crore this fiscal through stake sale in public sector entities and has set a roadmap for the same with the first issue SJVNL sailing off smoothly. SJVNL stake sale would fetch the centre over Rs 1,000 crore, after the government fixed issue price at higher end of the price band at Rs 26 per share.

Engineers India likely to be disinvested in June is the biggest mover, up 15% at Rs 442 on the BSE. The counter has seen almost 10-fold rise in volume, with 255,000 equity shares changing hands so far, against 26,000 shares traded daily in the last two weeks.

According to the divestment report, Coal India is likely to be disinvested in August, Hindustan Copper in August-September, SAIL in September and Power Grid in November this year. This would be followed by disinvestment in IOC and Manganese Ore India in December, RINL in January 2011, MMTC in February and Shipping Corporation in March next year.

“The government will sell its stake in 10 more PSUs, including Indian Oil, MMTC, Coal India, SAIL, RINL and Shipping Corporation, in the current financial year” stated the report.

STC India, the second largest gainer among the PSU pack, is up 7% at Rs 440, followed by Hindustan Copper (up 6%), Dredging Corporation (up 4%). HMT, MMTC, RCF and National Fertilizers up 2-3% each on the BSE.

The BSE PSU index the second largest gainer, is up 1% or 59 points today, as compared to 0.5% or 73 points fall in the benchmark index Sensex.