Indian companies raised nearly Rs 20,000 crore by selling shares through the offer for sale (OFS) mechanism in 2015-16, with PSUs accounting for most of the fund mop-up.
They had mobilised Rs 26,935 crore through this route in the 2014-15 fiscal.
This mechanism has significantly helped the government's disinvestment drive on account of greater transparency and wider market participation.
During 2015-16, companies garnered Rs 19,822 crore via OFS route. The government's divestment move raked in Rs 19,576 crore, according to an analysis.
The largest OFS was that of Indian Oil (Rs 9,396 crore) followed by NTPC (Rs 5,032 crore).
OFS accounted for as much as 40 per cent of the total fiscal year's public equity markets amount of Rs 48,952 crore.
The OFS through stock exchange mechanism was introduced by capital markets regulator Sebi in February 2012, to enable divestment by promoters to achieve minimum public shareholding in listed companies.
The OFS framework was subsequently modified based on suggestions received from the market participants to enable disinvestment by government in PSUs.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), in February this year tweaked the guidelines for bidding in the OFS segment. It reduced advance notice period for Offer For Sale to one day and allowed retail investors to place their bids a day later for such share sales.
Earlier, the listed companies needed to give an advance notice for share sales through the OFS route two banking days in advance, while the bids needed to be placed by retail as well as non-retail investors in a single day during market hours.
