Govt seeks consultants for sale of PSU land, buildings

New Delhi: The finance ministry is scouting for consultancy firms for assistance in selling land and building assets of public sector companies as it works towards achieving the stiff sell-off target of Rs 90,000 crore for 2019-20. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has floated a Request for Empanelment(RFE) to empanel international property consultancy firms or any other firms engaged in transaction advisory services, asset monetisation or project management.

The firms would assist DIPAM in formulating monetisation strategy with respect to land and building assets, conducting techno-economic feasibility studies of each of the assets, providing end-to-end transaction advisory services and ensuring completion of transactions.

"A major portion of the .... (non-core) government assets is in the form of land and buildings, for the monetisation of which this RFE is being floated," DIPAM said.

The non-core assets could be categorised broadly into land and buildings, brownfield operational assets such as pipelines, roads, mobile towers, electricity transmission lines.

It could also include financial assets, like equity shares, debt securities, other hybrid/structured finance asset units and other miscellaneous assets.

"Many of the assets are sub-optimally utilised and can be appropriately monetised to create greater financial leverage and value for the companies and the government, being the shareholder. Government intends to monetise select non-core and other assets owned by CPSEs/ PSUs/ other government organisations using appropriate model," DIPAM said.

The consultancy firms would be required to prepare feasibility reports for each of the identified assets, assist in finalising the model for monetisation, in conducting the bid process and preparing the bid document.