Share sales to more than double: BSE

India’s initial share sales will more than double in 2010 with the market stabilising and state companies going public, according to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The country will complete about 50 initial public offerings (IPOs) this calendar year, James E. Shapiro, the bourse’s head of market development, said in Singapore today.

Twenty-eight companies have raised Rs 9,700 crore in IPOs so far this year, BSE data show. Twenty IPOs raised Rs 19,500 crore last year and 38 IPOs raised Rs 17,000 crore in 2008.“There is definitely a long queue of government companies who have announced their intention to sell stakes and become public traded companies,” Shapiro said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee aims to raise Rs 40,000 crore in the year ending March 31 by selling stakes in state- run companies including Coal India Limited and Steel Authority of India Limited to help pay for the biggest budget deficit reduction in 19 years.

A total of 67 companies have pending draft offer documents with the regulator seeking approval for share sales.

“We see a fairly healthy and diverse IPO market in India,” Shapiro said. Banks have time till July 26 to bid for managing the sale of a 20 per cent stake in Manganese Ore (India) Limited by the federal and two state governments, according to an advertisement in the Economic Times today. The company is among the 68 state- run companies in which the government plans to sell stakes.

Beat BRICs
The BSE’s Sensitive Index, or Sensex, was the best performer among the 20 biggest equity markets last quarter. It rose one per cent in the second quarter, outperforming the so- called BRIC nations that include Brazil, Russia and China. India’s $1.2 trillion economy expanded 8.6 per cent in the three months through March, the fastest pace after China among Asia’s major economies.

The BSE, Asia’s oldest bourse founded in 1875, and Eurex, Europe’s largest exchange partly owned by Deutsche Boerse AG, plan to start trading in Sensex futures and options, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday.

BSE products account for less than one per cent of Indian equity options and futures trading, which is dominated by the rival National Stock Exchange, Shapiro said. The NSE was incorporated in 1992, according to its website.