By Krishna N. Das and Jatindra Dash
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - Coal India Ltd
The government has also written to aluminium maker NALCO
NALCO Chairman Tapan Kumar Chand told Reuters on Tuesday the company would likely appoint state-controlled SBI
Coal Secretary Anil Swarup declined to comment on the Coal India buyback and so did Finance Ministry spokesman D.S. Malik. But the source cited above said a decision would be taken by the company's board in a few days.
A Coal India spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
The buybacks will help the government partly make up for a funds shortfall in its ambitious divestment target for state companies ahead of the federal budget later this month.
India's cabinet last year planned a slew of divestments in state-owned companies, including sales of 10 percent each in Coal India and NALCO. But the programme failed to get traction as a commodities downturn cut investor appetite.
The government currently owns 79.65 percent in Coal India, which has a market value of more than $30 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data. The request for buybacks would amount to a stake of more than 1 percent at current prices.
Coal India had more than $9 billion in cash and short-term investments as of the September quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Still, a buyback would put pressure on the world's largest coal miner, which is fast burning through its cash horde as it expands aggressively to meet the government-set target of doubling output this decade.
($1 = 67.9750 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Jatindra Dash; Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in NEW DELHI; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
