PSU staff to get shares at 5% discount post divestment

Employees of state-owned firms will get shares at 5% discount after the completion of disinvestment through Offer For Sale (OFS).

"To incentivise the employees of such CPSEs, government decided to also offer some shares to them on successful completion of the OFS. The shares are to be offered at a discount of 5% to the lowest OFS discovered price," an official statement said.

No employee can subscribe to shares worth more than Rs 2 lakh and there would be no lock-in period, it added.

The Central Public Sector Enterprises will issue circular to all employees informing the details of the scheme.

The shares will be offered to employees after completion of cooling off period of 12 weeks from the date of the OFS.

However, if shares are to be offered earlier than cooling off period of 12 weeks, specific approval of market regulator Sebi is required, the statement added.

The employees of such companies in which OFS was undertaken after December would be given the option to buy shares, with 5% of the issue size to be offered to them.

To begin with, the Department of Disinvestment (DoD) will offer shares to employees in Nalco, Oil India, Rashtriya Chemical and Fertilisers and this would be followed up with SAIL, MMTC and all subsequent disinvestments.

The government has set a target to mop up Rs 40,000 crore through stake sale in PSUs in the current fiscal and has already lined up a host of companies, including Coal India, Neyveli Lignite, NHPC and Indian Oil.