The government has approved the appointment of six independent directors on the board of Oil India (OIL), the state-owned oil producer, which will pave the way for the company’s public offer in the third week of October, a senior company official said.
“Six independent directors have been appointed. We will open the public offer in the third week of October,” said a company official, who did not want to be named. The company’s board of directors, including the six new independent directors, will meet tomorrow to take a decision on filing a revised prospectus for the public offer.
The official said the revised prospectus will be filed with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by August-end.
OIL’s public offer had been approved by the Union cabinet late last year following which it had filed its prospectus with Sebi in January this year. Sebi had however not cleared the public offer as the company did not have the requisite number of independent directors on its board.
Clause 49 of the listing agreement with the stock exchanges make it mandatory that a company with an executive chairman to have half its board made up of independent directors.
The company hopes to raise around Rs 2,000 crore by selling around 10 per cent of its expanded equity capital. The government, which holds around 98 per cent stake, plans to divest another 10 per cent in the company through a pre-IPO placement to state-run refiners IOC, BPCL and HPCL.
