NTPC OFS through on LIC insurance

With Life Insurance Corporation having subscribed to around 41% of NTPC’s issue of shares on Tuesday, the power producer’s offer for sale (OFS) sailed through attracting a total subscription of 1.8 times. The 32.98 crore shares reserved for institutional investors attracted a subscription of 57.4 crore shares, according to the BSE.

Disinvestment secretary Neeraj Gupta said foreign portfolio investors had bid for Rs 925.45 crore worth of shares. This would amount to about 12.7% of the total subscription received on Tuesday. Gupta said the issue received bids worth Rs 7,287 crore in all, of which Rs 5,325.33 crore was from insurance companies. The NTPC stock closed 2.33% lower on the BSE at Rs 123.90. Since January, the stock has lost more than 15% in value.

The government proposes to divest 5% of its stake in NTPC by tendering around 41.2 crore shares at a floor price of Rs 122 per share, a stock exchange filing by NTPC said. Based on the floor price, the government will raise a little more than Rs 5,000 crore through the stake sale.

The NTPC stake sale is a part of the government’s disinvestment programme. The FY16 Budget outlined a disinvestment target of Rs 69,500 crore, of which Rs 41,000 crore is to be mopped up through regular stake sales and Rs 28,500 crore via strategic disposals.

The government has raised Rs 13,340 crore in FY16 so far. The NTPC stake sale is the second largest in the current fiscal after that of Indian Oil Corporation, where the exchequer raise more than Rs 9,370 crore.

Retail investors can participate in the issue on Wednesday. Of the total offering, about 20% is reserved for retail investors who will be allotted shares at a discount of 5% to the cut-off price.

Post the offer, the government’s stake in NTPC will reduce to 69.96% from 74.96%. SBI Capital, ICICI Securities, Edelweiss Financial Services and Deutsche India are the book-running managers for the offering.

This is the fourth public offering by the state-owned power producer. The government raised Rs 5,368 crore through NTPC’s initial public offering (IPO) in October 2004 and subsequently another Rs 8,500 crore via the follow on public offer route. In 2013, the exchequer divested a 9.5% stake in the company to raise more than Rs 11,000 crore, data compiled from stock exchanges showed.

NTPC’s stake sale is the first issue since the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) tweaked the OFS regulations. As per the new regulations, institutional and other non-retail investors will be permitted to place bids on the day of offer (T) while retail investors will be able to bid for shares one day after the trade date (T+1). Further, non-retail investors who have placed their bids on T day and have chosen to carry forward their bids to T+1 day will be allowed to revise their bids.

More than 1 crore NTPC shares changed hands across exchanges against the three-month average of 42 lakh, Bloomberg data showed.