ONGC issue sold over four times

Retail investors bid for 1.9 times the Gail issue.

The Rs 10,000 crore public offer of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was subscribed more than four times by yesterday evening. Life Insurance Corporation bid for 15 per cent of the issue yesterday.

According to details available on the Bombay Stock Exchange website, the issue has been subscribed 4.23 times with bids for 604.5 million shares coming in on the third day.

Meanwhile, the ONGC scrip price jumped 6.06 per cent to close at Rs 850.90, off the day's high of Rs 878.

Ajay Sondhi, vice-chairman, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, said with roadshows for the offer currently going on in the US, more funds were expected to come in. The response of retail investors would be known only in the last two days of the offer period, he said.

The Power Trading Corporation offer closed yesterday with 18.69 times subscription. It received bids for 1,093.4 million shares against an offer size of 58.4 million shares.

The Petronet LNG issue was subscribed 1.12 times on the penultimate day of the offer, according to Subramanian Swamy of Enam Securities, one of the lead managers to the issue. The offer received bids for 294 million shares, against the 260 million shares on offer.

Our Corporate Bureau in New Delhi adds: Retail investors bid for 1.9 times the Gail India issue, which closed on March 5. "Against the issue size of Rs 1,564 crore, retail investors put in Rs 2,988 crore," Gail India Ltd Chairman Proshanto Banerjee today told Business Standard.

"What is particularly gratifying to me is not only has the issue been subscribed 9.2 times, but retail investors have reposed great confidence in it," he added.

According to Banerjee, the government's offer for sale of a 10 per cent stake in Gail India received 372,414 applications.

"If I take away the 320 applications received from qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), there were still over 372,000 applications from retail investors, including individuals, high net worth individuals, Hindu undivided families and non-resident Indians," he said, adding, "This is better than the response to the Maruti issue, which saw 280,000 applications from retail investors."

Among the 320 QIBs who applied for Gail shares, 152 were foreign institutional investors. Attributing the success to the company's communications initiative, Banerjee said, "Even a year ago, very few people were aware of what Gail India was doing or what its multiple layers of business were."

While 5 per cent of the issue size has been reserved for Gail employees, the remaining 95 per cent will be equally divided between retail investors and QIBs.