After opening the day on a flat note, share markets in India witnessed volatile trading activity and are currently trading marginally higher. Except for stocks in the banking sector, all sectoral indices are trading in green. Stocks in the realty sector and stocks in the consumer durables sector are leading the gains.
The BSE Sensex is trading up by 76 points (up 0.3%), and the NSE Nifty is trading up by 27 points (up 0.3%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.6%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 1%. The rupee is trading at 64.63 to the US$.
In news from stocks in the PSU sector. National Aluminium Company (Nalco) share price is in focus today after the Government announced plans to dilute 10% in the company through the offer-for-sale route.
The Centre fixed the floor price at Rs 67 a share. The offer opened on Wednesday for institutional investors and opened today for retail investors. Through the issue, the government plans to sell 96.6 million shares which make up 5% of the paid-up share capital of the company. The centre said it was considering an additional option to sell up to 5% more.
Allotted retail investors will be getting a discount of 5% to the cut-off price.
The government at present holds 74.6% in the company and the stake sale will fetch it Rs 6.47 billion at the price of Rs 67 per share.
In FY17 Nalco’s share price saw an appreciation of 94.6% against a gain for the benchmark Sensex of 17.22%.
The sale of shares in Nalco via the OFS route follows a buyback by the company of its shares in FY17 for an amount of Rs 28.4 billion to achieve the divestment target for the fiscal. Major PSU companies saw buybacks in the last fiscal in an effort to reach an ambitious target of raising close to Rs 455 billion through divestment.
Buy Buybacks of Public Sector Units
In his Union Budget for FY18 unveiled early February, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had set the disinvestment target for the year at Rs 725 billion. The government also plans to list three railway sector PSUs during the year.
