Jet founder company to sell shares to comply with rules

REUTERS - A founder group company of Jet Airways will sell shares to funds and other investors to comply with a rule that requires companies to have a minimum 25 percent public shareholding, the carrier said on Monday.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways last week agreed to acquire a 24 percent stake in India's No. 1 carrier Jet, giving it a bigger foothold in the fast-growing aviation market.

Tail Winds Ltd, which owned almost 80 percent of Jet before the deal, will transfer a majority of its stake to Jet owner Naresh Goyal, and sell additional shares to funds and other investors to comply with the public float rules, the carrier said in a stock exchange filing.

Funds and other investors currently own 20 percent of Jet.

At the stock's current market value, the additional 5 percent stake, or roughly 11.1 million shares, could be worth 6.8 billion rupees.

The airline did not set a time frame for selling additional shares to public, but the markets regulator has set a deadline of June-end for meeting the shareholding requirement.

Goyal will own 51 percent of Jet after the Etihad deal. Jet Airways has called a meeting of shareholders on May 24 to seek their approval for the deal.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)