NHPC Stake Sale: Institutional portion gets oversubscribed; stock down nearly 7%

The government's 11.36% stake sale in electricity generator NHPC got off to a strong start on Wednesday with the portion for institutional investors getting oversubscribed within three hours of opening of trade.

Of the over 100.61 crore shares on offer for these investors, bids for over 156.33 crore shares, or 1.55 times had come in till 1255 hours. Bidding will continue till 1530.

The remaining, over 25.15 crore shares, will be sold to retail investors on Thursday. They will be allocated shares at 5% discount to the cut-off price. These individual investors are to place bids for shares of the total value not exceeding Rs 2 lakh.

NHPC is the first public sector unit (PSU) stake sale of the current fiscal and the government is selling over 125.76 crore equity shares of NHPC representing 11.36% of the total paid-up equity share capital.

At a floor price of Rs 21.75, the sale will fetch about Rs 2,700 crore to the exchequer. The floor price was at a discount of 5.6% over Tuesday's closing price.

In the secondary market, the scrip was holding steady at Rs 21.70, down 5.86% over the previous close. In the morning trade, it had lost 6.7% to Rs 21.50 a piece.

Post stake sale, the government holding in NHPC will come down to 75%, making the PSU compliant with a minimum public shareholding norm of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

The government has set an ambitious target of Rs 56,500 crore from disinvestments in current fiscal. Of this, Rs 30,000 crore is to come from PSU stake sale and the remaining Rs 26,500 crore from strategic stake sale.

NHPC, under the administrative control of the Power Ministry, generates power through conventional as well as non-conventional sources.

At 14:33 hours, the shares of NHPC were trading down 6.72% or Rs 1.55 to Rs 21.50 per scrip on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).