BEL’s Rs1,670 share sale subscribed 367% in retail portion

The offer for sale (OFS) of Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) of a five-per cent equity stake worth around Rs1,670 crore, received an enthusiastic response from retail and the non-retail investors, including domestic institutional investors and foreign institutional investors.

The share sale was subscribed by 367 per cent in the retail category and 234 per cent in non-retail category, ensuring that the government of India receives Rs1670 crore from BEL OFS issue.

The government is divesting 5 per cent of the paid-up equity capital out of its shareholding of 74.41 percent in BEL through the OFS mechanism on the stock markets. BEL is a Navratna public sector undertaking under the administrative control of ministry of defence and is engaged in manufacturing of the state of the art equipments in the field such as communication, radars, naval systems etc.

The floor price was fixed at Rs1,498 per shares for the OFS Issue for retail investors.  The issue was open at the BSE and NSE for two days - on 22 February for Institutional Investors and 23 February.

On 22 February, the issue opened for non-retail investors against the offer size of 8.934 million shares. The OFS got an enthusiastic response from investors, which included domestic institutional investors, foreign institutional investors and the issue was subscribed 234 per cent (at cut-off price of Rs1499).

On 23 February, the issue was opened for retail investors for 20 per cent of the overall offer size, ie, 2.234 million shares with a discount of 5 per cent on the cut-off price. The issue was subscribed 367 per cent in the retail category.

The likely clearing price of retail investor will be at more than Rs1565. However, retail investors are entitled to a discount of 5 per cent on the cut off price (Rs1,499 which is more than the institutional floor price).