Govt may sell NHPC stake to NTPC to raise about Rs18,200 cr: report
26 Jul 2018
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The centre is now looking at offloading its 73.67-per cent stake in hydro-power producer NHPC Ltd, worth about Rs18,200 crore at current market prices, to its state-run peer NTPC Ltd, the nation’s biggest electricity generator by capacity.
The talks are at an initial stage and a deal is unlikely this fiscal. The government, however, is likely to complete the groundwork for the stake sale before March, the report said.
The NHPC stock surged as much as 9.7 per cent before closing 3.9 per cent higher at Rs24.15.
Besides the financial gains, the government is also looking at scaling up the organisational size of state-run companies to give them global size and scale on the lines of the oil company mergers/
The sale, if approved, will be the second such consolidation after state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp acquired the government’s stake in oil refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp for Rs36,900 crore.
The transfer will also help thermal power producer NTPC expand its green portfolio as it seeks to gradually shift away from fossil fuels. NTPC had last year proposed to acquire government’s stake in another hydro-electricity generator SJVN Ltd.
