About 181 companies to divest Rs27,000 crore worth shares by 13 June: Sinha
17 Apr 2012
About 181 companies will have to offload shares worth about Rs27,000 crore to meet the minimum public holding norms for listed companies, U K Sinha, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), said today.
Listed companies have to mandatorily keep public shareholding at a minimum of 25 per cent of their equity capital, latest by June next year, in order to remain listed, under SEBI listing regulations.
''There are 181 private sector companies which are not compliant with that requirement and the amount of securities that has to be brought to the market is about Rs27,000 crore,'' Sinha said at the CII annual meet in New Delhi.
Sinha said 43 among the 181 companies account for the bulk of the shares, worth Rs25,000, to be sold, adding, the estimated value of shares of Rs27,000 crore is based on valuations of the companies as of 29 February 2012.
Besides these, Sinha said, several state-run companies are expected to offload shares worth Rs12,000 crore in the market by June 2013.
However, public sector firms are reported to be planning to offload shares worth over 5,70,000 crore through various routes, including through the institutional placement programme (IPP) and offer for sale of shares through Stock Exchanges to meet the government's disinvestments targets.