BPCL trust to sell at least 4% in block deals today
MUMBAI: About 8.7 crore shares, representing 4% of refining and oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL), are expected to be sold on the stock exchanges on Tuesday through block deals. The transaction, aggregating to at least Rs 3,774 crore (approximately $517 million) is part of the sale of the 15.9 crore BPCL shares, or 7.3%, that a trust managed by the company currently holds.
At Rs 435 per share, the floor price for the deal is at a nearly 7% discount to BPCL’s Monday close of Rs 467 on the BSE. BPCL currently has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 1 lakh crore, BSE data showed. The full 7.3% stake is currently worth about Rs 7,400 crore — that’s a little over $1 billion.
Although the company on Monday allowed the full 7.3% to be offloaded, market sources said that, in the first tranche, only about 4% is set to be sold. Till late Monday evening, the three brokers involved in the deal — arms of Citibank and Kotak Bank, as well as ICICI Securities — were selling it to institutional investors through the accelerated book-building process.
