Govt eyes fatter share sale kitty in '15;gets Rs 18k cr in '14

It began with a bang, turned into a whimper soon and bounced back again in the end, but sale of shares -- in PSUs and a private sector firm -- still fetched the government little over Rs 18,000 crore in 2014.
Still, a record-breaking stock market rally seems to have largely bypassed the government's disinvestment plans to raise funds from part sale of 'family silver' in 2014, as the proceeds fell by almost one-fifth from over Rs 22,000 crore garnered during the previous calendar year.
The new year 2015, however, may see shares worth over Rs 50,000 crore being put on the table by the government, including by way of part-sale of its holdings in PSUs and its residual minority stakes in some private sector entities.

"You don't sell family silver in a scrappy market unless there is a distress," a senior official said, while explaining the disinvestment programme during the year passing-by.
The stock market may have reached new record highs, but there was too much volatility and occasions were rare to get the right price for offloading shares in such prized assets as PSUs, he said, while adding that the government is hopeful of better days ahead in 2015.
A top banker, who has advised on some PSU share sales, said the government's disinvestment programme in 2014 began on the right note, but lost track within a few months.

The end of the year, however, saw some success and sale of shares in steel giant SAIL got a robust response and was billed as 'SAIL's super sale' by market watchers.

Within the first three months of 2014, the government managed to raise Rs 7,725 crore through share sales in just three PSUs -- Engineers India Ltd, BHEL and Indian Oil.
This was topped by realisation of Rs 3,000 crore as disinvestment proceeds through a newly created CPSE Exchange Traded Fund that comprises of shares of listed CPSEs in March.
The same month also saw garnering of Rs 5,557 crore through part sale of shares in private sector lender Axis Bank, held through a special purpose vehicle SUUTI.

Together, the government managed to raise over Rs 16,000 crore in first three months from sale of shares, but this was followed by a long slump and the funds garnered during the next eight months was a meagre Rs 52 crore -- that too through employee share offers in NTPC and National Fertilisers Ltd.
The last month of the year, however, saw the government raising little over Rs 1,700 crore through an offer for sale in SAIL, ending the year with total funds of Rs 18,059 crore.
Overall, the government managed to sell shares in six PSUs and one private sector, besides through one multi-share ETF, during 2014. In comparison, the government sold shares in 13 companies during 2013, taking its total disinvestment proceeds that year to Rs 22,144.60 crore.

Encouraged by good response to SAIL stake sale, the government, however, now plans to aggressively pursue its disinvestment strategy in 2015 to pare its holding in state- run companies, including ONGC and Coal India.
In the process, it faces a daunting task of meeting Rs 43,425 crore target for the current financial year that ends in March 2015, as against total proceeds of less than Rs 1,800 crore collected so far in this financial year.
In addition, it is also targetting Rs 15,000 crore for sale of residual stakes in private companies in this fiscal.