Government to sell 20 per cent equity stake in SAIL
21 Oct 2009
The government has approved a follow-on public offer of 20 per cent equity in Steel Authority of India Ltd, steel minister P K Rastogi said today.
The Government of India owns around 86 per cent of SAIL.
"The scheme has been approved internally. The scheme is for disinvestment and public offer of shares totalling 20 per cent," the minister said. Earlier the minister had said the SAIL stake sale would be in two installments.
The government had, earlier this week, approved a 5 per cent stake sale in NTPC, the country's largest power producer and has already raised around Rs8,500 crore ($1.8 billion) by listing two public sector firms.
SAIL has paid Rs460.81 crore to the government as final dividend for the last financial year, taking the total dividend paid to the government to about Rs921 crore in 2008-09.
Minister for steel Virbhadra Singh handed over a cheque for Rs460.81 crore to the prime minister as final dividend to the government for the financial year 2009.
SAIL has paid total dividend to shareholders totalling Rs1,073.9 crore, about 26 per cent of its paid-up equity capital of Rs4,130.4 crore.