New Delhi, March 15
The government has fixed
the final share price of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) at Rs 750
per share, with retail investors being offered the scrip at a discounted price
of Rs 712.50 as a whopping Rs 10,534 crore was mobilised by one of the largest
ever public issues in India.The initial public offering (IPO) of the ONGC was
last of the six IPOs of public sector undertakings offered during the last few
weeks.
The overwhelming response to the ONGC shares, both by institutional and
retail investors, has enabled the government to exceed the budgeted target of Rs
14,500 crore to be mopped up from disinvestment proceeds during 2003-04.
“Each
retail investor will get what he asked for”, Disinvestment and Communications
Minister Arun Shourie told newspersons here.
He said with the ONGC IPO, the
government has exceeded the disinvestment target by about Rs 900 crore.
Bouyed
by the success of the recent IPOs, the government would consider several
options, including the listing of scrips of public sector undertakings on
international bourses, Mr Shourie said.
The ONGC issue was oversubscribed 5.88
times and as many as 7.6 lakh retail investors and 350 institutional buyers
participating in the public issue.
The Minister refused to divulge the names of
high networth individuals as it would breach the norms of confidentiality.
On
reports that the world’s second richest individual Warren Buffet had bid for the
ONGC public issue, Mr Shourie said Mr Buffet himself had denied such
reports.
He said the response of international investors to the ONGC IPO was
overwhelming with 67 per cent of US investors participating in roadshows, making
their bids. Eighty-four per cent from Europe and 88 per cent from South-East
Asia took part.
“'This shows the level of confidence these investors have in
the Indian economy,’’ Mr Shourie said.
