Institutional investors put in Rs 578 cr bids for NFL stake

Institutional investors today put in bids worth of Rs 578 crore for the government's 15 per cent stake in National Fertilisers Ltd (NFL).
Through the two-day offer for sale (OFS), the government is selling 7.35 crore shares, or 15 per cent stake, at a floor price of Rs 72.80 a share. The sale would fetch about Rs 530 crore to the exchequer.
At the close of market hours, of the 5.88 crore shares reserved for institutional buyers, subscriptions for over 7.94 crore shares came in, representing 1.35 times the shares on offer, according to NSE data.
Over 1.47 crore shares will be offered to retail investors tomorrow.

Shares of NFL closed at Rs 73.20, down 7.17 per cent over the previous close, on the BSE.
The government holds 89.71 per cent stake in NFL.

So far in the current fiscal, the government has already raised about Rs 7,000 crore through share sale in four companies.
Of this, Rs 1,207 crore has come from initial public offering of HUDCO in May, Rs 1,192 crore through Nalco OFS in April and Rs 203 crore via RCF OFS in June.
Besides, around Rs 4,200 crore have been raised through stake sale in L&T held through Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) last month.

The government has budgeted to raise Rs 72,500 crore through stake sale in PSUs.