ONGC shares slip 4% a day after auction

Mumbai: ONGC shares fell about four percent in the early morning trade today - a day after the government managed to succeed with nearly five per cent stake sale in the public sector energy giant for about Rs 12,600 crore.

After falling nearly two percent yesterday, the ONGC shares lost further ground in early morning trade today and was down nearly 4 percent to Rs 276.30 on the BSE.

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After an initial spike yesterday, ONGC shares had turned weak amid a poor response to the auction till the market hours and had slipped below the Rs 290 per share floor price set for the stake sale.

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The sale of shares, conducted through a one-day auction on the two stock exchange BSE and NSE, finally got subscribed 98.3 percent with total bids for little over 42 crore shares as against total offer size of 42.77 crore.

The auction was marked with a high level of confusion regarding the number of bids and the final tally was announced late in night, despite the bidding ending at 1530 hours.

The response was very poor till about 3 pm, but it gained momentum in the last minutes. At the time of the close of auction, the exchanges had put the final bid tally at about 29 crore shares or about 68 per cent of the offer size, but revised it upward to 42.04 crore in a late night statement.

Market experts have said that a high floor price may have played spoilsport in the government’s ambitious ONGC stake sale, which could have been finally saved after last-minute intervention by the state-run financial institutions like LIC.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, however, termed the stake sale as a “great success” and said late last night that the issue could have fetched the government nearly Rs 12,666 crore

PTI