BEL share sale:Institutional bidders portion over-subscribed

The government's 5 per cent stake sale in Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) opened to an enthusiastic response today, with the shares reserved for institutional investors getting over-subscribed.
The 2-day offer for sale (OFS) of the government's 5 per cent stake in BEL at a floor price of Rs 1,498 opened for non-retail investors today.
The share sale got fully subscribed with bids coming in for over 1.23 crore shares as against 89.34 lakh reserved for the non-retail segment at 1425 hours, as per stock exchange data. The share sale got subscribed 1.38 times and the bidding will go on till 1530 hours.

BEL stock was trading 3.04 per cent down at Rs 1512.45 on BSE in pre-close trade.
The shares will be available for subscription by retail investors tomorrow. Retail buyers will be allocated shares at a discount of 5 per cent to the cut-off price.
In all, the government is selling 1.11 crore shares through the OFS route at a floor price of Rs 1,498. The share sale would fetch Rs 1,600 crore to the exchequer.

The government currently holds 74.41 per cent in BEL. Earlier this fiscal, the government had raised about Rs 1,800 crore through share buyback of BEL.

The government has so far raised over Rs 31,000 crore through minority share sale by way of OFS, share buyback and CPSE ETF in the current fiscal.
BEL is the second government OFS in 2017, the last being the sale of its 10 per cent in Manganese Ore (India) Ltd (MOIL) raising Rs 480 crore.
The government had sold 15 per cent in NBCC to mobilise Rs 2,200 crore in October 2016, 7 per cent in Hindustan Copper to raise Rs 400 crore in September and 11.36 per cent in NHPC to garner Rs 2,716 crore in April.