Three merchant bankers are in the race for conducting government stake sale in the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation of India (MMTC) through Offer For Sale (OFS) as part of the disinvestment programme for 2012-13.
The three merchant bankers and selling brokers — Avendus, IDBI Capital Market Services and IDFC — would be making presentations before the disinvestment department on Friday.
Six legal advisors would also be making their presentations on the same day for handling MMTC share auction through stock exchanges. Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co, Link Legal, Amarchand Mangaldas, S & R Associates Advocates and AZB & Partners are competing for the job.
With this, the government is also trying to start the disinvestment process for the current financial year with Nalco and a meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) is likely to take up the pricing of shares for the company's OFS in the next few days.
Earlier, the deadline for bids for the selection of merchant bankers and brokers for MMTC was extended thrice within a month in October and the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam limited (RINL) initial public offering (IPO) had also been deferred thrice, indicating hurdles on the disinvestment front.
According to finance ministry officials, for both RINL and MMTC, pricing was a major concern.
The government has failed to make any headway on the disinvestment front, despite Finance Minister P Chidambaram stressing the Rs 30,000 crore target for this financial year would be achieved.
Of its shareholding of 99.33 per cent in MMTC, the government is considering disinvesting 9.33 per cent paid-up equity share capital, comprising 9.3 million shares of face value Rs 1 each, in the domestic market, through an OFS.
Besides Nalco and MMTC, the government's list of companies in which the process of stake sale through an OFS has already been initiated by the disinvestment department includes Oil India and NMDC.
