NFL shares get oversubscribed by institutional buyers

New Delhi: The government’s 15% stake sale in National Fertilisers Ltd(NFL) got off to a smooth start on Wednesday with the portion reserved for institutional investors getting oversubscribed in the afternoon trade.

Through the two-day offer for Sale (OFS), the government is selling 7.35 crore shares or 15% stake at a floor price of ₹ 72.80 a share.

The share sale would fetch about Rs530 crore to the exchequer. Of the 5.88 crore shares reserved for institutional buyers, bids for over 6.73 crore shares came in, representing 1.14 times the shares on offer, as per NSE data.

Bids will come in till close of market hours. The OFS will open for retail investors on Thursday. In the secondary market, NFL scrip dropped 6.72% to ₹ 73.55 a piece on BSE.

Government holds 89.71% stake in NFL. The floor price of ₹ 72.80 a share is at a discount of 7.67% over yesterday’s closing price of ₹ 78.85 on BSE.

So far in the current fiscal, the government has already raised about ₹ 7,000 crore through share sale in four companies.

Of this, ₹ ,207 crore has come from initial public offering of HUDCO in May and ₹ 1,192 crore through Nalco OFS in April and ₹ 03 crore through RCF OFS in June.

Besides, around ₹ 4,200 crore have been raised through stake sale in L&T held through Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) last month.

The government has budgeted to raise ₹ 72,500 crore through stake sale in PSUs.