ITI eyeing FPO in July-August: Official

Public sector ITI Limited is targeting to come out with fresh issue of shares through a follow on public offer (FPO) between coming July and August, its Chairman and Managing Director S Gopu said today.

"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs was very kind enough to approve a proposal to allow us to offer 18 crore fresh issue of shares to public through FPO in domestic market. Our aim is to come out with fresh issue of shares between July and August," he told reporters here.

The government currently holds 92.59 per cent stake in ITI, he said.

"We are hopeful it (FPO proceeds) will be used for very important projects like Bharat Net, Data Centres and several IoT programmes," he added.

The FPO will also help ITI reduce its debt obligations and meet Sebis requirement of minimum 25 per cent public shareholding, Gopu said.

FPO is a stock issue of additional shares made by a company that is already publicly listed and has gone through the initial Public Offering process.

The ITI chief also announced expansion of the compay's data centre facility by adding 1,000 additional racks in the existing set up here and setting up of new data centre of 200 racks capacity at its Naini plant.

ITI manufactures telecom products across six units in Begnaluru (Karnataka), Raebareli, Naini and Mankapur (UP), Palakkad (Kerala) and Srinagar (J&K).

It is a supplier for the defence communication and networking needs and a major supplier of encryption products to the Indian Army.

Gopu said India was expecting massive investment in data centre business as the government was going ahead with Digital India initiatives.

The PSU, which was in financial mayhem for the last 16 years, had recently announced a profit of Rs 102 crores for 2017-18.

The company executive also said the new infrastructure will enable PSU banks, central and state government undertakings, MNCs, corporates and large enterprises to have their data located in the country.

The expansion of the facility will give enterprises in the government and corporate sector an opportunity to serve their customers and end-users better while being able to compete with private players on an even keel, he said.

Many organisations have already shown interest in hosting their data with ITI, he added.