NTPC’s FPO floor price fixed at Rs 201 a share | NTPC FPO Further Public Issue

NTPC’s FPO floor price fixed at Rs 201 a share | NTPC FPO Further Public Issue

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) has fixed the floor price for the proposed follow-on-public offer (FPO) of the state-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) at Rs 201 per share. The minimum bid lot will be 28 equity shares and in multiples of 28 shares thereafter. The issue will be open for subscription between February 3 (Wednesday) and February 5 (Friday).

The eligible employees of the company, who will be submitting their bids in the Employee Reservation Portion, will get a discount of Rs 10 per share in the offer.

The government is looking to offload its 5% stake in the largest power utility of the country through this issue. Following this issue, the government’s stake in the company will come down to 84.5% from current 89.5%.

The floor price fixed by the government is way below the earlier expectations of around Rs 265 a piece. The move may be influenced by the last month’s correction in the equity markets and tepid response from investors to the recent initial public offerings (IPOs) of state-owned, NHPC and Oil India.

Though most of the analysts have sounded the issue attractive, investors have given thumps down to the company’s share in trade.

Last month, the company commissioned the coal based Unit-5, having 490 megawatt (MW) capacity, of its National Capital Thermal Power Project situated at Dadri, Uttar Pradesh (UP). With the commissioning of this unit, the total installed capacity of the company has now crossed 31000 MW and has become 31134 MW.

NTPC’s net profit for the December 2009 quarter jumped by 5.07% to Rs 2,364.98 crore from Rs 2,250.91 crore for the corresponding previous quarter.

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