Govt gets Rs 5,030 cr from 5% NTPC stake sale; retail investors stay cool

Government on Wednesday raised about Rs 5,030 crore from sale of its 5 per cent stake in NTPC, with insurance companies getting almost two-third shares but retail participation was lukewarm amid a free-fall of stock markets. The public issue of 41.22 crore equity shares was mostly lapped up by FIIs, insurance companies, mutual funds and HNIs, all of which came on the first day of the offer of sale (OFS) on Tuesday.

While institutional investors bid for nearly twice the number of shares offered to them, the 700 point drop in benchmark Sensex over two days seemed to have taken its toll on retailers who put in bids for less than half of their quota. The excess bids of institutional bidding was used to make good the shortfall in retailer flow, giving the government about Rs 5,030 crore from the share sale, the sixth this fiscal. Disinvestment Secretary Neeraj K Gupta said the retail portion too would have been over-subscribed had the broader markets been stable. About 63 per cent of the shares sold were allocated to insurance companies, led by state-run LIC. Retail investors, who were reserved 20 per cent of the issue size, got 8.5 per cent of the shares.