Power Grid gets shareholder approval to hike FII limit to 30%

Power Grid Corporation of India has received shareholder approval to increase the limit of holdings by foreign institutional investors to 30 per cent from 24 per cent currently.
FIIs can acquire and hold, on their own account and on behalf of each of their Sebi-approved sub-accounts, shares of the company up to an aggregate limit of 30 per cent of the paid up capital, the state-owned company said in a filing to the BSE today.
Shareholders also approved a proposal to increase the company's borrowing limit to Rs 1,30,000 crore from the current cap of Rs 1,00,000 crore.
Both proposals were cleared through postal ballots. The plans had been approved by Power Grid's board of directors at a meeting on October 23.

Last month, Power Grid had said that increasing the limit would provide more headroom for FII investments in the company. FII holdings have been on the rise since the company's first follow-on public offer in 2010.
Power Grid had hit the capital market with an initial public offering in October 2007.

Shares worth about Rs 7,000 crore were sold in the company's second follow-on offer, which closed earlier this month.
The government got about Rs 1,600 crore from the sale of 18.51 crore shares, while Power Grid raised close to Rs 5,400 crore from its offer of 60.18 crore new shares.

Proceeds from the offer would be utilised by the company for 27 transmission projects.