NBCC share sale makes a solid start

The government's 15 per cent stake sale in construction company NBCC on bourses took off today, with over 50 per cent of the shares reserved for institutional investors getting subscribed in the first hour of trade.
As much as 9 crore shares will be sold over two days, with institutional investors getting to bid on the first day and retail ones getting a chance tomorrow.
The floor price has been fixed at Rs 246.50, which is at a discount to the prevailing market price of Rs 251 per share.
As on 1035 hours, as against 7.20 crore shares offered to institutional buyers today, bids came in for over 3.88 crore, or 54 per cent of the shares on offer, as per data available on NSE. The share sale for today will continue till close of the market.

In the secondary market, the NBCC scrip is trading at Rs 251, down 0.79 per cent, on BSE.
Retail investors, who are defined as individual investors who place bids for sales of total value of not more than Rs 2 lakh in aggregate, will be allocated shares at a discount of 5 per cent of the cut-off price. Twenty per cent of the offer size has been reserved for the retail players.

Any unsubscribed portion of the retail category after allotment will be allocated to the un-allotted bids of institutional buyers who have chosen to carry forward their bids to Friday.

The government holds 90 per cent in the company, which has a market capitalisation of Rs 15,180 crore.
The share sale will help the company meet Sebi norms that mandated PSUs to have a minimum public holding of 25 per cent.
The Cabinet had in July this year cleared disinvestment in the project management consultancy and real estate development company.
NBCC was listed on the bourses in 2012 when the government diluted 10 per cent stake to raise Rs 127 crore. The price band of the NBCC IPO was then fixed at Rs 90-106 per share.
In May this year, shareholders had approved stock split to facilitate the FPO under the government's disinvestment programme. The company has split its share of Rs 10 each into five with a face value of Rs 2 each.

The stake sale is part of the government's Rs 56,600 crore disinvestment programme for the current fiscal. So far this fiscal, the government has raised Rs 6,414 crore through OFS and buyback of equity.
NBCC is the third disinvestment through offer for sale (OFS) route by the government in the current fiscal. It had sold 7 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper to raise Rs 400 crore in September and 11.36 per cent in NHPC in April to garner Rs 2,716 crore.