BEL share sale: Institutional buyers put in Rs 3100-cr bids

The stake sale in state-owned aerospace and defence company Bharat Electronics saw strong demand from institutional buyers which placed bids worth over Rs 3,100 crore on the first day of the offer today.
The share sale attracted bids for over 2.09 crore shares as against 89.34 lakh shares offered to institutional investors, garnering subscription of 2.34 times, according to the stock exchange data.
Most of the bids came at Rs 1,500.05 per share, higher than the floor or minimum bid price of Rs 1,498. At this price, subscription of over 2.09 crore shares totalled over Rs 3,100 crore.
The government is selling 1.11 crore shares or 5 per cent stake in Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) through offer for sale route. The share sale would fetch Rs 1,600 crore to the exchequer.

The share sale will open tomorrow for retail investors with over 22.33 lakh shares up of for the bids.
Retail investors are being given 5 per cent discount to the share allotment price. Any unsubscribed portion of the retail category will be allocated to the un-allotted bids of institutional buyers who have chosen to carry forward their bids tomorrow.

Shares of BEL closed at Rs 1,510.25, down 3.19 per cent over previous close on BSE.
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 stake 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.